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Advocates of student loan forgiveness protest outside the Supreme Court.

Reflections on the Geopolitical Roots of U.S. Student Loan Debt

The emergence of student loan debt in the late 1960s can be situated within a broader shift towards neoliberal governance.
Photo of college graduates throwing their caps in the air.

Borrowed to the Hilt

President Biden’s SAVE plan isn’t going to rescue the tens of millions of Americans that together owe more than $1.7 trillion.
Buckingham Palace [photo: flickr.com/lorentey/]

American Higher Education’s Past Was Gilded, Not Golden

A missed opportunity for genuine equity.
Stock traders watching Jerome Powell in conference on screens in the New York Stock Exchange.
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Seeing Americans as Consumers Threatens the Fairness of Our Economy

The Federal Reserve keeps increasing interest rates to try to bring prices down — but that may erase gains by non-White workers.
The 1.25-million-square-foot USC Village residential complex in Los Angeles.

The Rise of the UniverCity

Historian Davarian Baldwin explains how universities have come to wield the kind of power that were once hallmarks of ruthless employers in company towns.
Graduation cap on pile of money
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Policymakers Created the Student Loan Industry — and The Debt Crisis

While they never intended for more than 45 million Americans to have this much debt, policymakers in the 1960s made fateful choices.
Students sit at a graduation ceremony.
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How Tax Policy Made College Unaffordable

The government’s failure to fully invest in higher education created our current crisis.
Sillhouettes of incarcerated men preparing for a graduation ceremony.
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Educational Aid for Prisoners Works. Yet It’s Politically Precarious.

Why all Americans benefit from higher education for those incarcerated.
Woodcut illustration from 1934 economics textbook depicting people walking from tenement houses past an advertising billboard and straight to a loan office.

Bad Economics

How microeconomic reasoning took over the very institutions of American governance.
Angela Davis speaking at the Birmingham Committee for Truth and Reconciliation event at the Boutwell Auditorium on Feb. 16, 2019 in Birmingham, Ala. (Andi(cq)Rice/The Washington Post)
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Thanks to Conservative Politicans and the Media, the Education Wars Echo the 1960s

The debate once again centers on — and stokes — White parents’ anxieties.
Students at Colby College

Harvard–Riverside, Round Trip

In the contemporary United States, higher education does more to exaggerate than relieve class and cultural divisions.

What’s New About Free College?

The fight over free education is much older than you think.
Thomas Piketty

Thomas Piketty Takes On the Ideology of Inequality

In his sweeping new history, the economist systematically demolishes the conceit that extreme inequality is our destiny, rather than our choice.
A painting of a "traditional" mid-20th century nuclear family.

All in the Family Debt

How neoliberals and conservatives came together to undo the welfare state.
Folk singer Tom Glazer performs in July 1965 for nearly 400 children enrolled in Head Start centers at Saratoga Square Park in Brooklyn, N.Y. (AP)

Evaluating the Success of the Great Society

Lyndon B. Johnson's visionary set of legislation turns 50 years old.

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