How does debt aversion affect college completion for Latino students? Aversion to borrowing is both a barrier to college completion and is integrally connected to several other barriers, mostly financial, disproportionately burdening Latino students. It’s complicated! But a new report from our partner, Kate Elengold of the UNC School of Law, and in collaboration with UnidosUS and CCC staff, sheds critical light on the unique circumstances and particular challenges facing … Continued
Dispatches
News
CCC Statement on Police Brutality and Systemic Racism
The Center for Community Capital (CCC) condemns the killing of George Floyd as well as Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and many other Black people before them by the hands of law enforcement officers. While the focus is often on the acts of violence by individual law enforcement officers, these tragedies happen repeatedly because of the systemic and structural racism that has deemed some bodies more worthy of life than others. … Continued
Blog
Tuition-Free College
Economic Mobility, Higher Education, Voices of Student Loan Borrowers
The Center for Community Capital on occasion publishes blog posts written by CCC Graduate Fellows. This post, written by William Curran-Groome (MCRP 2020) & Amie Sigmann (MSW 2020) looks at the emerging trends driving tuition-free colleges and the ways in which international and national actors are working to make higher education more affordable. Free college is not a novel concept, either in the U.S. or abroad, but it has made … Continued
Blog
The True Cost of Higher Education
Economic Mobility, Higher Education, Voices of Student Loan Borrowers
The Center for Community Capital on occasion publishes blog posts written by CCC Graduate Fellows. This post, written by Celeste Kathleen (MSW 2021) & Keiyitho Omonuwa (MPH 2020) analyzes the pattern of rising costs in higher education across the nation. The Space Race catapulted the shift of federal funding from grants to loans. After Sputnik first orbited the earth in 1957, Americans began to think that their education system was lacking … Continued
News
CCC Wins NC TraCS Award
Higher Education
The UNC Center for Community Capital is pleased to receive an award from the NC TraCS Institute for the 121st cycle of the TraCS $2K pilot grants. Molly DeMarco (with the UNC Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention) and Jess Dorrance will work on a project entitled, “Addressing Basic Needs Security in College Students in North Carolina: A Formative Study.”
Media Mentions
The Down Payment Report: Low Down Payments and Default Risk
Affordable Homeownership
“The rising level of defaults in the FHA portfolio is a cause for concern, but some of the proposed solutions could do more harm than good. Assuming that down payment assistance (DPA) from state and local housing agencies―or down payment assistance generally―inherently contributes to defaults is a good example. “As researcher Michael Stegman asserts in his new paper by the Center for Household Financial Stability at the Federal Reserve Bank … Continued
Media Mentions
No Place Like Home
Affordable Homeownership, Default, Bankruptcy, & Foreclosure, Housing Policy, Other
“One of the most startling discoveries I’ve made in my research has been the direct connection between energy efficiency and financial health for low- and middle-income families. A 2013 study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Center for Community Capital and the Institute for Market Transformation (IMT), “Home Energy Efficiency and Mortgage Risks,” compared data from 71,000 homes in 38 states and the District of Columbia. The … Continued
Media Mentions
Harvard study debunks down payment assistance myth, supporters claim
Affordable Homeownership, Community Advantage Program, Default, Bankruptcy, & Foreclosure
“Default rates among loans that used down payment assistance were low compared to other mortgage types, according to a joint report from the Center for Household Financial Stability at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, Center for Community Capital at the University of North Carolina and Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.”
Media Mentions
CCC Partners on New Research to Explore Relationship Between Debt and Equity in Higher Ed
Higher Education, Voices of Student Loan Borrowers
The UNC Center for Community Capital is partnering on a grant from Lumina Foundation to the UNC School of Law to study the relationship between debt, achievement and equity in higher education, with a specific focus on Latino/a students. This project also includes a collaboration with UnidosUS, a national nonpartisan organization that serves the Hispanic community through research, policy analysis and advocacy efforts.
Blog
Remembering that I Belong
The Center for Community Capital on occasion publishes blog posts written by CCC Graduate Fellows. This post, written by Janel Burns (MSW 2020), is a reflection on how impostor syndrome can be a major barrier to academic and professional success for many, but especially for women and people of color. I don’t know about your inner voice, but mine tells a lot of lies. “Not good enough.” “Poser.” “You’re deceiving … Continued