This is separate from tuition assistance, which they may also be eligible for. Unfortunately, the descendants of slaves are not only financially affected, but academically affected. Early interventions like reading to your young children and helping them with homework are reduced for the descendants of enslaved people, likely due to a combination of less favorable working conditions and the reduced academic involvement of their own parents.

This is an anecdote, but it’s stuck with me: I used to work in a call center and once spoke to a man my father’s age, whose grandparents (like my father’s) were sharecroppers. That man was not literate enough to write down a claim number, so he put his daughter on. I asked (impolitely, but I was too curious), and she explained that the majority of teachers in 1950s and 60s Alabama just didn’t care if a poor black kid learned to read. My father has a master’s degree. There’s no way this man’s daughter was read to as much as I was or given as much academic help as I was. That’s happening on a huge scale, and a lot of people will consider only my father’s merit, not this man’s consistent, overwhelming disadvantage.