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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.
by Britain Hopkins via Process: A Blog for American History on October 29, 2024
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.
by Elizabeth Tandy Shermer via The Baffler on October 11, 2023
Graduation cap with "HIRE ME" written on top.

The Broken Promise of “College for Everyone”

The rise in undergraduate degrees was supposed to increase prosperity and cut economic inequality. Biden’s student debt relief plan proves otherwise.
by Jack Schneider via The New Republic on February 27, 2023
Pew Research chart showing rising earnings disparity between young adults with and without college degrees

Pushing Everyone Into College Was a Policy Response to Other Policy

None of it happened by mistake.
by Freddie deBoer via Freddie deBoer on November 21, 2022
Student loan debt activists rally outside the White House a day after President Biden announced a plan that would cancel $10,000 in student loan debt for those making less than $125,000 a year in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 25, 2022.
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The 50-Year Path That Left Millions Drowning in Student Loan Debt

How new student loan programs turned students into consumers — and ignited a competition among universities that left them drowning in debt.
by John R. Thelin via Made By History on September 13, 2022
Governor Ronald Reagan speaking to an audience about the higher education system.

The Origin of Student Debt

In 1970 Roger Freeman, who also worked for Nixon, revealed the right’s motivation for coming decades of attacks on higher education.
by Jon Schwarz via The Intercept on August 25, 2022
Jimmy Carter receiving an honorary degree from Notre Dame in 1977.

Here’s How Jimmy Carter Changed Higher Education

He tackled segregation in the nation’s public colleges and fraud in student-aid programs, and established the Department of Education.
by Kelly Field via The Chronicle of Higher Education on December 29, 2024
Lincoln being sworn in by Chief Justice Taney.

We Are Already Defying the Supreme Court

The risks of calling on politicians to push back against the court must be weighed against the present reality of a malign judicial dictatorship.
by Samuel Moyn, Ryan D. Doerfler via Dissent on January 22, 2024
Protesters holding a sign that reads "Student debt cancelation is legal"
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History Says Student Loan Debt Relief Isn’t Un-American

Americans have long demanded — and regularly received — debt relief from legislatures.
by Emily Zackin, Chloe Thurston via Made By History on June 30, 2023
A vacant home surrounded by a chain link fence is seen in Los Angeles, February 16, 2010.

Why Obama-Era Economists Are So Mad About Student Debt Relief

It exposes their failed mortgage debt relief policies after the Great Recession.
by David Dayen, Lindsay Owens via The American Prospect on August 31, 2022

Occupy Wall Street’s Legacy Runs Deeper Than You Think

Former occupiers are working to transform the system from inside and out.
by Astra Taylor via Teen Vogue on December 17, 2019
Senator Joseph R. McCarthy and his aide Roy Cohn.

Worse Than McCarthyism: Universities in the Age of Trump

The target then was the nonexistent threat of Communist teachers; today, it’s the supposed radicalism of the academy.
by Ellen Schrecker via The Nation on April 3, 2025
Gov. Ronald Reagan confronted student protesters in Sacramento weeks before dismissing “intellectual luxuries.”

The Day the Purpose of College Changed

After February 28, 1967, the main reason to go was to get a job.
by Dan Berrett via The Chronicle of Higher Education on January 26, 2025
Run on a bank during the Great Depression.

The Radical Past and Future of Debt Resistance

The deep roots of debt relief activism in the United States.
by Astra Taylor via The Nation on September 25, 2024
The State Capitol building in Richmond, Va.
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Debt Has Long Been a Tool for Limiting Black Freedom

In pre-Civil War Richmond, Black people were forced to literally pay for the mechanisms of white supremacy.
by Amanda White Gibson via Made By History on February 19, 2024

Constrain the Court—Without Crippling It

Critics of the Supreme Court think it has lost its claim to legitimacy. But proposals for reforming it must strike a balance with preserving its independence.
by Laurence H. Tribe via New York Review of Books on July 27, 2023
Buckingham Palace [photo: flickr.com/lorentey/]

American Higher Education’s Past Was Gilded, Not Golden

A missed opportunity for genuine equity.
by Elizabeth Tandy Shermer via Academe on October 14, 2022
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.
by Suzanne Kahn via Made By History on August 11, 2022
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.
by Davarian L. Baldwin, Meagan Day via Jacobin on September 2, 2021

The Kids Aren’t Alright

A crucial new work of generational analysis explores how society turned millennials into human capital.
by Natasha Lennard via Dissent on January 1, 2018
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.
by Elizabeth Tandy Shermer via Made By History on December 21, 2017
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.
by Melinda Cooper via Boston Review on May 31, 2017

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