STUDENT LOANS

An Open Letter to College Students about the Debt Crisis in Higher Education

Higher education in America is in freefall.

John Martin, “Book 12 Line 641.” Public domain via The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Dear Students ,

In case nobody has told you, higher education in America is in freefall. It has succumbed to the morally corrosive panic created by its current funding model.

It wasn’t always like this. In the recent past, State and Federal governments supported higher education financially because they saw it as a public service. That vision for higher education is rapidly being replaced by the idea that higher education should be run like a business and be profitable. Governments are reducing funding and demanding that schools support themselves more.

Albrecht Dürer, “Christ Expelling the Money Lenders, from ‘The Small Passion.’” Public domain via The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

That transition has been painful in various ways. The most shameful consequence is the way that students have been forced to bear the burden of supporting higher education financially by taking on incredible amounts of debt.

The culture of higher education promotes the fantasy that college is the pathway to unlimited prosperity while it ignores the reality that college is one of…