Welcome, I'm Baratunde Thurston and this is Clarify
The show focused on the issues that matter to you most, this election
Mic and Spotify have teamed up to break down the issues, and break through the rhetoric
To bring you, the facts
Remember facts? We'll be joined by policy experts, journalists and musicians throughout this season
Today we're talking student debt, and it includes a fascinating conversation with Diplo
Now if you've paid off your student debt, congrats, you're a billionaire and your friends hate you
But for those of you still struggling to pay, don't worry, you're not alone
More than 40 million Americans share a combined 1.3 trillion dollars in student loan debt
That's about $30,000 per person
Money that could be used to pay for a car
Put towards retirement, or watch Netflix for 300 years
Nearly 70% of Bachelor's Degree recipients leave school with debt
Which has a long term impact on their lives and the larger economy
Young people have put of starting businesses, families and buying homes
While Uncle Sam, banks and universities come out on top
So how did college become so expensive? And what can be done about it
We'll break it down for you in other videos in this series, but first a chat with Diplo
The DJ and hit-making producer shared his thoughts on the student debt crisis
and the importance of education in his life
What was your first experience with the idea of student loan debt?
Either directly or through family and friends - when did it first hit your radar?
I think my generation, as far as my family - my generation - me and my sisters were the first
kids to actually go to college, and had aspirations that that was normal
We were trying to make our way from high school to college to get jobs
Before that my mother and father, their brothers and sisters
No one ever had aspirations to go to college, it was unheard of
Where was this? This was in Florida
So my father, his father, you know nobody - it was just you get a job out of high school
That's what you do, there's no option for college
My dad ended up going to Vietnam for the war and didn't enter college until he was almost 30
But you know, he took advantage of it - full advantage, he got the GI bill
Was able to college and decided, I'm gonna make my kids to college too
And it stopped a cycle where my family always had rudimental jobs in Florida
And just lived off the land and, you know, we were
I think we made a change - our generation
My father never had a social life, he was literally just working with three kids
Finally got the opportunity to go to college, but he had to go to war to get
To get the money
To get the money to attend college
It was very important for us to go to college - I went to university in Florida
Cos we didn't have money for me to pay for - for me to leave Florida
But I went to UCF
Ok - University of Central Florida
Yeah at the time it was almost like a community college, it was very cheap
It was a state school, so I was able to easily pay for that
It was only like $2000 a semester
Eventually I was like - my life - I gotta get out of Florida
You finally hit the wall
I see my thousands of cousins and I'm like, let me try to make my way out of here
Climb out of the state. And I went to Philly and went to Temple
And that was my first experience leaving Florida and becoming a human being
Becoming an adult
You weren't a human being in Florida?
I wasnt. In Florida -
What was it like you were a sub-human creature?
Yeah so I was like - a swamp creature you know?
But I made my way out of Florida - it sounds funny but in Florida you have tunnel vision
You don't see outside of Florida, you don't see a month in advance
You live paycheck to paycheck
I think that's a lot of people, wherever they are
Yeah I had to work three jobs to stay in Philadelphia, to pay my rent
I didn't tell you this before but even - I didn't graduate, like in a graduation
But I went to Temple University there - tuition wasn't that high but it was very high
But I ended up finish two and a half years there and kept having to work so much that I wasn't able to
finish school on a regular schedule
And also trying to create music, and live my dreams and do what I wanted to do as a creative person
I'm sorry that didn't work out for you
Well it did, but it took a lot longer than I wanted it to
What was your loan situation in your Temple University in Philly experience
You were spending money you didn't quite have so you took out some loans
Yeah I took out loans, I borrowed money from my family, I had jobs full time
Paying rent and just buying food is difficult
That was the most difficult thing
You chose to eat - that's your problem right there
When you get the loans - it's true.
And how did all of that affect your pursuit of music
I think that it - I didn't full time become a musician and use that as my job until I was 25 or so
Which - I'm just still lucky, and at that moment I connected and I said to myself, everything else that I'm doing here
Working at Subway or the zoo - taking tickets
You worked at the Zoo?
I did, I worked at the Philadelphia Zoo for a little while
I worked at movie theaters, I was a school teacher
I know that you've been very supportive of Bernie Sanders, you've made no secret of it
In fact in one of your tweets you said: Vote for Bernie or I'm unfollowing you
So I have two questions for you: was his stance on college funding and student debt
because he had a pretty aggressive stance on college funding and student debt
Was that a part of your support of him, and if so could you go into some detail
I mean, Bernie Sanders had so many crazy, key aspects to his agenda that I loved
Some of them were very lofty, some of them were difficult for people to even understand
And I think he was going the full - he was going the most utopian route as far as a candidate but I loved that
Because we never had that opportunity - people who are younger that aren't involved in politics had never seen
a candidate like Bernie. We haven't seen in our generation at all
You don't think Obama counts?
Obama was very motivational, but even some of the stuff Bernie Sanders said
Obama could never have used that to be elected
It was like, so far left and so crazy and amazing to me
They actually called Obama socialist when Bernie really..
Obama was so motivating to young people as well, but it was 8 years ago when Obama
came in, it's a whole new generation of kids now and I think kids are even more entrenched in the internet
And Bernie Sanders came along, and when you start following him and google searching him
and figuring out who he is, it made young kids very excited about politics,
because some of things that he talked about like student loans, and student debt was intriguing to kids
like that affects their day-to-day lives. Because politics doesn't affect our lives as much as it used to
I gave him some music for his campaign, and I loved the energy people had for him
And I loved that it got young people involved in politics - thats one of my main things I love about Bernie Sanders
How connected are you and how aware are you of the stories of people not like you who had that debt, like how close are you
Like my son's mother is still, like her debt was - you know $200,000 in debt and I'm helping her pay that off slowly
Almost everybody I know - my management their still paying their debt off
Everybody I know has debt. I'm like a very small percentage, lucky story where I just happened to
strike gold like you said, I was able to make money in my profession
Well done man, good job
Thank god, I don't know what I would do
I don't know what I would do if I didn't make money, I would be back in Florida - back in the swamps
But, everybody I know they're still paying it off
I mean some people are paying it off slowly, it might take them 10-20 years
But some people, it's just so daunting, you know you're not guaranteed a job when you're out of college either
So you don't know what's next
As a musician, or as an artist do you have concerns or any experience with people
who weren't able to choose what you chose because of the debt
Or because they feel obligated to take a certain line of work
To be able to pay that down, so they don't get back to their creative side
Because this financial need is so strong
I mean for me, even that moment when I decided to be a creative musician, it was so..
It was the scariest day of my life, I'm like look - I'm gonna quit my job, I'm gonna do this
It could be like a black hole you just jump into, or you could be successful
Most of the time it's just black hole, like most of the time it's difficult to make that decision
And what you can count on is a stable job, so a lot of people leave their creative dreams by the wayside
And continue on the path to having a normal job
Well not a normal job, but being able to not concentrate on things that motivate them in a creative way