EDITORIAL: D.C. Teachers Should Receive Help with Student Loan Debt

The Biden administration and states with progressive legislators and gubernatorial administrations have moved forward on helping Americans resolve the issue of crushing student debt. The District is no exception, with a program in place to help health care workers with a student loan repayment program. The move toward assisting city employees with their student loans should not stop with health care workers.

Each working day and sometimes on the weekend, educators teach the District’s school children and supervise them in extra-curricular activities. To complement their lives, District educators live in one of the most expensive metropolitan areas in the country, statistics consistently show. 

The work of teachers should be rewarded by city leaders. Recognizing this, D.C. Council member Christina Henderson (I-At Large) introduced a bill—The Student Loan Repayment Assistance for Educators Act of 2023—on Oct. 3. The bill would create a loan repayment program for public school educators who meet certain residency, income, and employment requirements. The D.C. Council should pass this bill and Mayor Bowser should sign it.

The average student loan debt in the District is $54,945, which is in the range of the average salary of a teacher, at $63,714 according to Salary.com as of Sept. 25. A March 8 post on the SmartAsset website reported that to live comfortably in the Washington, D.C. region, a person should earn $65,668. The combination of the student loan debt, salary and cost of living in the Washington region means that District educators teach under some economic stress. For people who work with the District’s young people, the nation’s capital’s future, which should not be the case. 

Henderson’s legislation would allow teachers to work with the Office of the State Superintendent for Education in consultation with the Student Loan Ombudsman to come up with repayment plans considering their salaries and other economic factors. The bill presently had nine introducers, more than enough for passage if it comes to a vote. District legislators should do the right thing and help our teachers and assist them in paying back their student loans.