Institute Senior Counsel Demelza Baer writes in Next City:
In addition to undermining access to healthcare and affordable housing, these tax bills also represent a grave threat to education and educational opportunity. At a time when the cost of higher education is increasingly out of reach and millions of Americans are struggling to pay their student loans, the House bill would repeal the student loan interest deduction. Over 12 million people currently take this deduction, which allows some taxpayers to lower their taxable income by $2,500 as they repay their loans. This would particularly hurt students and graduates of color, because they have more student loan debt — black graduates have on average twice the student loan debt of white graduates.