Charts of the week: children’s well-being, black student loan debt, US forces in Afghanistan

Click on the links or on the charts to go to the full research.

58% of advanced country citizens think their children will be worse off

William Galston discusses new data on how attitudes about the future in developed and developing countries are dramatically different. “The loss of confidence in the future is a defining reality of life in advanced industrial societies,” he notes

Black college grads have twice the student loan debt of whites

While student debt levels have increased across the board, black students are feeling this burden disproportionately.

ABOUT 8,400 US troops Are deployed in Afghanistan

(as of the end of March 2017)

A team of Brookings foreign policy experts convened to discuss the history and future of U.S. policy in Afghanistan. Among their recommendations is that U.S. and coalition troops (the latter numbering about 6,400 as of January 2017) “should focus on stabilizing the security environment, alongside critical, complementary efforts to tackle corruption, ethnic and tribal discrimination, and drug trafficking.”

Sam Dart contributed to this post.