There's a Program to Cancel Private Student Debt. Most Don't Know About It.

Occupy Wall Street ignited today's debt cancellation movement. Groups like the Debt Collective are winning victories, canceling predatory student debt and pushing systemic reforms like tuition-free college. Though incremental, these changes are rewriting policy and challenging racialized capitalism.

Some colleges and universities, such as the Community College of Allegheny County, are expanding opportunities for students to earn academic credit for previous work and life experience, allowing them to bypass some courses and requirements covering skills they've already learned on the job. According to one study, these programs can result in significant tuition savings and help students cut down on the time it takes to finish a degree.

The Disability Resource Center at UGA provides students with disabilities access to resources like priority course registration, which accounts for navigation and transportation barriers, testing accommodations and classroom accommodations, like having assigned notetakers and recording lectures. The Disability Resource Center helps more than 3,000 students receive accommodation each year.

In an attempt to combat pandemic-era drops in enrollment, the City University of New York network sent personalized letters to seniors graduating from public high schools in the city and waived application fees for these students for the month of October. The network saw its number of applicants jump 386 percent compared to the same month last year.

At CU Coventry, students take just one course at a time for four hours each day, which allows them to finish a bachelor’s degree within three years. The fixed schedule and “no frills” tuition is often more convenient for nontraditional students who may have children or full-time careers outside of school.

Programs like Panthers Forward are working to help students and their families understand, prepare for and afford the cost of a university education. Group members can receive up to $5,000 of federal student loan debt relief and can also attend networking events, mentor discussions and access financial wellness resources. 150 students are accepted into the program each year.

In Nigeria, nonprofit organizations are helping to organize and deliver virtual journalism-related training to university students who can't attend classes as normal due to the coronavirus pandemic. Although some students have said that the organizations aren't always transparent about the price of the webinars, many have reported that their writing has improved and they have made connections with others.

Several courses offered at colleges throughout Montana are using storytelling that is founded in cultural competency to better connect students with their heritage. This effort is part of a larger project that aims to raise graduation rates by implementing support systems for students. Other offerings include block scheduling and career and technical education certificate programs.

At Georgia State University in Atlanta, a couple of hundred dollars can often be the tipping point for whether a student can graduate or not. To address this issue and to further help low income students, the college has implemented a retention grant system, providing these essential funds to get students over the finish line.

More than one million service members, veterans and their families take college courses financed with federal tax dollars. Their experiences are more complicated than those of their fresh-faced civilian peers, leading entities to explore the most effective ways to ensure they graduate.