A global network of scholars advocates, and financial organizations working to understand and empower the linkages between lending and human values.
Why Dignity?
Loans enable people to realize their visions of a good life, yet many families across the globe are falling into life-altering debt. Worried that they will forever be enslaved by it, some parents have trouble sleeping and their health and relationships diminish. Debt affects their ability to help loved ones live with dignity, whether they be children or aging parents with inadequate resources. Further, debt can reduce self-esteem, motivation, and capacity to participate effectively in civic life and financial institutions. Financial propositions that lack a vision of dignity treat people like robotic quantities, occluding the very moral values that give financial sacrifices meaning.
Latest Updates
Student Debt and Racial Disparities
View a series of original data visualizations exploring facets of student loan debt, created in homage to W.E.B. Du Bois.
Student Loan Debt Calculator
Use this interactive tool to calculate your student debt, compare it with various demographic groups, and explore options for refinancing.
Student Debt and Dignity Visualization Contest
Enter and help envision a meaningful future of financial autonomy and educational inclusion around the world.IN THE NEWS
Global Forum on Student Debt
(L-R) Tressie McMillan Cottom, National Book Award finalist; Seth Frotman, former Student Loan Ombuds (CFPB); Darrick Hamilton, Exec. Dir. of the Kirmani Institute (The Ohio St. Univ.); Ida Rademacher, VP of The Aspen Institute
Debt in America: An Interactive Map from The Urban Institute
The Urban Institute presents a new series of interactive maps of failing auto, medical, and student loans across the US. These maps visualize the geography of debt disparities that reinforce existing wealth gaps between white communities and communities of color.
Interview with Fred Wherry on a Dignified Approach to Digital Credit
The Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth’s director of research, Dan Barker, recently interviewed Professor Fred Wherry to discuss how looking at trends in the digital credit industry through a sociological lens can help deliver better products and …
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