Brianna Franklin, founder of the Prosp(a)rity Project, is on a mission to close the student loan debt gap for Black women everywhere.
When Briana Franklin received an acceptance letter to one of the best colleges in the country, it seemed all but certain that she was on a track toward lifelong success. She was nervous about the costs of attending that school but was told by friends and family that an Ivy League education would guide her to a life of complete financial freedom.
Unfortunately, they were wrong. Instead, it guaranteed a personal and economic spiral into an eventual debt of over $100,000 — a situation so challenging and overwhelming that it inspired Franklin to dedicate her life to ensuring it wouldn’t happen to others. This led to the creation of Prosp(a)rity Project, a nonprofit organization on a mission to close the generational wealth gap for Black women created by the $2 trillion predatory lending crisis.
We spoke to Franklin about her personal debt story and dove into the fascinating (and frankly terrifying) dynamics that cause Black women to be disproportionately burdened by student loans, as well as the essential work that Prosp(a)rity Project is doing to close that gap.
Ivy League as an investment: “It’s good debt”
“I was the first in my family to go to an Ivy League school,” Franklin says. “Everyone in my life had called it an investment. They were like, ‘Oh, it’s good debt. Don’t worry about that. You’ll be able to pay it off with the job you get.’ And that’s not how it went for me at all.”
When Franklin arrived at school, she found herself “nowhere near the level” of her peers academically. As a result, she spent most of her college experience trying to stay afloat in her classes and didn’t have the time or personal connections to make a solid plan for her post-graduate life.
“I came out [of school] with a massive burden of debt and very little means to pay it off,” Franklin says. “As a result, I just entered a revolving door of jobs to make ends meet for about a year and a half post-graduation. And during that time, the interest on my private loans was accruing in the background.”
By the time Franklin realized she needed to face this burden, her loans had grown to $116,000, thanks to compounding interest. “I also had some credit card debt, a car loan, and a phone I had no business buying,” Franklin added. “So at my peak, I owed $123,600, and zero common sense, as I like to say.”
Franklin’s joking nod to poor decision-making skills is likely well-taken by many people. After all, she technically took these loans on willingly, and as a result, she does bear the sole responsibility for paying them off — right?
How the student loan industry preys upon Black women at disproportionate rates
When it comes to the $2 trillion student loan crisis in America (yes, that’s trillion — with a T), Black women hold a disproportionate amount of that debt, graduating with an average of $38,000 in loans. Black borrowers are also more likely to default on their debts than other demographics. Why?
A veritable stew of factors contributes to this issue. First, there’s the challenge of generational wealth: namely, Black women tend not to benefit from it. The average Black household in America has a median net worth of $24,000, for example, while the average white household has $188,200 — and since parents are often the ones who save students from student loans by paying for college, this discrepancy speaks volumes.
So Black women and men are more likely to need to take on loans in order to attend the same institutions as their white counterparts. But then what accounts for the fact that Black women face higher loan burdens than Black men throughout their lives?
The answer to that question takes us past household net worths and undergraduate tuition numbers and into the labor market. The particular blend of disadvantages that Black women face in the labor market exists at the intersection of racism and sexism.
Because Black borrowers are more likely to take on more loans than their white and Asian counterparts, and because women are more likely to earn way less than their male counterparts, Black women face a double whammy in loan challenges. Not only do they tend to take on higher loan amounts, but they tend to earn less in the job market than other demographics, even if they’re working the same exact role.
For all of these reasons, Black women face a particularly difficult battle when it comes to paying off loans and building wealth for themselves, and future generations.
How Prosp(a)rity Project is taking on the student loan crisis
When it comes to student loan relief, there are two general options: major foundations like the Gates Millennium Scholars Program, which provides wonderful support to those at the poverty level but excludes those in the lower and middle class, or random act-of-god moments that come from billionaires and celebrities, like the viral 2019 announcement by billionaire Robert Smith that he would pay off all student loans for Morehouse graduates that year.
Prosp(a)rity Project seeks to address the space in between those areas, where middle- and lower-class Black women are largely forgotten. Via their 35*2 Free Initiative, the nonprofit puts eligible candidates on a fast track to financial freedom by offering three forms of support:
- A retroactive scholarship of up to $10,000 to help the candidates pay off loan debt
- Six months of personalized financial coaching support
- Eight weeks of supplemental career development support
Right now, the Prosp(a)rity Project is focused exclusively on helping Black women pay off loans and achieve financial stability, but eventually, Franklin says, the goal is to provide this kind of support to anyone who faces a similar burden. “We’re just starting with Black women, but in my dream world, no one would be suffering from this.”
