The number one complaint of higher education today is the incredible cost increase of attending college. Sever-al major books address this topic by explaining what happened to drive up costs, how costs have shifted to students, and the easy availability of student loans, now almost entirely provided by the federal government. This section emphasizes books that explore the changes underway at nearly every institution to control costs, and the efforts on the part of students to either reduce their debt burden or consider non-university alternatives for launching their careers and entering the job market.
For the reader seeking a single book that surveys the student debt phenomenon with fearless clarity, Sandy Baum’s Student Debt (2016) fits the need perfectly. In a mere one-hundred pages, Baum explains how the so-called student debt crisis is in many ways not a crisis at all, given the preparation young adults need in postindustrial society and the relatively low levels of debt that typify borrower profiles. Baum notes, for in-stance, that student loans are not really debt problems but solutions to cash flow problems for people without access to capital. Education increases opportunity in many dimensions throughout life—a benefit that should be as openly available as possible, according to Baum. In addition, most income-driven debt is affordable for most borrowers; the extreme cases that the news media often touts are far from representative. Baum also notes that most student debt will eventually be forgiven—a controversial but reasonable reading of decades of political rhetoric. Sacred cows are not safe here. Baum notes that most borrowers come from higher-income families, so loan forgiveness actually confers greater benefits to the better-off. To improve social mobility, Baum prefers direct aid and grants. Substantial data buttress the narrative. Baum’s pithy writing and clear reasoning lower the temperature surrounding this issue—a welcome and needed analysis of a much-discussed aspect of higher education.
Beth Akers and Matthew Chingos also assert in Game of Loans (2016) that there is no evidence of a student loan crisis or a systemic financial catastrophe facing student borrowers. Akers and Chingos acknowledge the rising amount of student debt, which at $1.3 trillion in 2016 now seems quaint. While student debt should concern students and administrators, it does not pose a financial threat to lenders, borrowers, or institutions. The authors rightly point out a good deal of hyperbole in the way the issue is portrayed, again noting news stories that often focus on borrowers with uncommonly large debt loads. Another important insight to bear in mind is that higher levels of debt overall are due in part to the fact that a higher percentage of young people now attend college and eventually attain bachelor’s and graduate degrees, which is a good thing. The authors ask readers to recall that student loans are made without credit checks, are often included as standard components of student financial packages, and are touted, especially to lower-income students, as the key to un-locking the lifetime financial advantages of higher education.
Writing with his usual depth and precision, William Rouse explains the vast complexity of funding an enterprise as large, sophisticated, and decentralized as higher education in Universities as Complex Enterprises (2016). The “corporatism” of higher education is administrators’ response to the student-as-customer model, in which demand-driven forces create a need for a centralized administration to satisfy. Without this centralized response, student-customers cannot reliably be satisfied across colleges in a single university, which comprise everything from liberal arts majors to medical school researchers. Rouse places much of the blame for rising costs on the increasing number of administrators and staff. These analyses point to a factor implied but not stated by Rouse: that students themselves, with their demands for work-ready degrees and expanded services, are partially responsible for increased costs.
In Paying the Price (2016), Sara Goldrick-Rab’s comparison the rising costs of college to changes in household income shows a more disparate picture of college affordability than comparisons to the cost of living. The differential has grown so great that the equation of how a college education fits into the life plans of families has been fundamentally changed. Moreover, many families have not fully come to terms with those changes.
As editor of Student Debt (2020), Avery Elizabeth Hurt brings together sixteen brief assessments of the college loan issue, which collectively include nearly every common angle of the issue in a way that lacks both solid da-ta and depth of analysis. The intent of the book, apparently, is to provide neither of those things. Still, the contributors’ “viewpoints,” individually and collectively, could have made for a more satisfying analysis. Presenting opinions in direct opposition to each other is useful, as in juxtaposing Marshall Steinbaum’s call to eliminate all student debt with Miranda Marquit’s argument that loan forgiveness would do little for the economy while penalizing those who have already paid off their debt. But the other volumes reviewed in this section paint a far more complex picture of all the positions discussed in this collection and give greater value to the reader.
Daniel Kirsch discusses the student debt problem from the wider framework of debt in general and the role of the political system in expanding indebtedness across economic and social spheres. Sold My Soul for a Student Loan (2019) makes the case that American universities now owe their structure and operation to the government and feel compelled to support the political forces that guarantee their continuance. Furthermore, debt creates obligations that imperil democracy by excluding debtors from the ruling class and making their status as citizens provisional. Because the government is the final guarantor of that debt, expanded borrowing threatens the well-being of borrowers and enhances their subordination to the government. The rising cost of tuition has made the choices of whether to attend college and which major to pursue primarily economic ones. The main reason for the increasing financial burden on students is directly attributable to public policy. As Kirsch con-tends, “The results of much of the last half-century of federal higher education policy on the mentality and goals of students have devalued learning in favor of financial stability” (p. 71). With this unique and sobering take, Kirsch makes important contributions to the student debt debate.
The economic consequences of high and rising student debt receive close scrutiny in James Koch’s The Impoverishment of the American College Student (2019). Koch shows in detail how the student loan system works and the effects of federal higher education policy on student financial concerns and the overall economy. Universities have used the availability of loans and other federal financial aid to allow costs to rise, ironically reducing college affordability. Criticism of university endowments receives attention here, with a call to link those endowments more closely to the cost of attending. The problem of endowments is not only a function of elite private institutions; for instance, the University of Michigan’s endowment is worth $350,000 per student (p. 134). Looking at these under-addressed topics and others, including the federal aid–driven cost spiral, mission creep, increased use of part-time faculty, and the growing disconnect between the interests of faculty/administrators and students, makes the book a must read.
In Education without Debt (2020), Scott MacDonald offers hopeful alternatives for alleviating student borrowing. Taking for granted what other authors in this essay do not, MacDonald views the student debt situation as a crisis badly in need of immediate solutions. As the above scholars have shown, debilitating debt loads are rarer than many believe, but MacDonald notes that even moderate debt can seem insurmountable to recent graduates. Therefore, no-loan and need-blind admission policies are becoming more prevalent, representing an institutional response to help assure students that university administrators have heard their complaints and are looking for solutions. The list of universities that have taken up the no-loan challenge is impressive, including Davidson College, the University of North Carolina, Princeton, Harvard, Brown, and the University of Michigan. Mac-Donald is one of the few authors advocating for increased contributions from universities, alumni, and other forms of charitable giving to reduce student borrowing, and Education without Debt belongs in any collection of student loan research.
As with most of the books reviewed in this section, Josh Mitchell’s The Debt Trap (2021) takes the student loan situation to be a serious national problem, indeed, a catastrophe caused by the perceived value of the college credential and, therefore, its desirability. This increases demand for degrees and puts universities in the position of being able to raise prices because demand for this good is relatively inelastic to price. What is different about The Debt Trap is its narrative technique of including imagined conversations between important stakeholders to give the dynamics of higher education financing more immediacy. In addition, Mitchell provides an extensive history of the development of Sallie Mae and its position as the principal student loan agency of the federal government. With Sallie Mae’s help, more students have been able to pay rising college costs, giving universities little incentive to rein in expenses. Mitchell’s book provides a convincing account of how student debt has become so large and why the cost of attending college has risen so high.
The Impoverishment of the American College Student
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