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Key Words: Hasan Minhaj tells Congress that student loan debt is ‘a paywall to the middle class’

The Netflix “Patriot Act” host has been vocal about the $1.6 trillion debt crisis. Read More...

“You know the student loan crisis is bad when I’m asked to testify before Congress about it,” comedian Hasan Minhaj tweeted on Tuesday.

In his five-minute statement before the House Financial Services Committee earlier that day, the Netflix NFLX, +0.10%  “Patriotic Act” host laid out how the record $1.6 trillion student loan debt is crushing 44 million borrowers.

“You don’t need to be drowning in debt to understand that this is an issue sidelining millions of Americans,” said Minhaj, 33. “People are putting off marriage, kids, homeownership and retirement,―especially my generation.”

‘We’ve put up a paywall to the middle class.’

Hasan Minhaj

The satirist, who was previously a correspondent on “The Daily Show” for four years, mixed some humor in with his statistics.

But he still takes the student loan crisis seriously. He went viral in February for a “Patriot Act” segment that laid out the confusion many parents and students face in navigating student loan repayment plans. He said that student debt was one of the most requested topics that fans of his show want to see covered.

Related: Comedian Hasan Minhaj on student debt: ‘This system has become broken’

In fact, when Minhaj polled his live studio audience of about 200 people during that February show, he found their collective student loan debt was more than $6 million — more expensive than the “Patriot Act” set.

“Now granted, our audience is mainly unemployed poli-sci majors, but that’s still a lot of money,” he told the congressional committee on Tuesday.

He also pointed out that the committee had graduated from college about 33 years ago and paid an inflation-adjusted tuition of $11,690 a year on average. Yet currently, tuition at those same schools is almost $25,000 — a 110% increase on today’s students, while wages have only increased 16% during those three decades.

“People aren’t making more money, and college is objectively way more expensive,” said Minhaj. “And yet many borrowers are still treated like deadbeats because the government has put their financial futures in the hands of predatory for-profit loan servicing companies.” 

‘Many borrowers are still treated like deadbeats because the government has put their financial futures in the hands of predatory for-profit loan servicing companies.’

Hasan Minhaj

Presidential candidates including Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have both proposed clearing some or all of the nation’s student loan debt as a platform in their campaigns. Researchers have also suggested that canceling some or all of the nation’s outstanding student debt could potentially boost the nation’s gross domestic product and shrink the racial wealth gap.

Related: How wiping out $1.5 trillion in student debt would boost the economy

Minhaj closed by asking Congress why it doesn’t treat student borrowers the way it treats U.S. banks. “Because 44 million Americans, that is too big to fail,” he said.

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