Burdened: Student Debt and the Making of an American Crisis

An urgent investigation of student debt in America revealing the corrupt systems, rotten policies, & bad actors that have created a $1.7 trillion crisis.

College costs more today than ever & is worth less. Tuition at public colleges has more than tripled in the past 50 years. Over the same period student debt has grown from virtually nothing to more than $1.7 trillion, second only to home mortgages.

Skyrocketing student-loan burdens are leading an entire generation to put off the traditional milestones of adulthood: buying homes, getting married, starting families, & saving for retirement. The burden weighs heavier on women & black Americans, & with almost 10 percent of student debtors now over the age of 60, it is a crisis no longer limited to the young.

Ryann Liebenthal's Burdened tells the maddening story of how the power plays of legislators & presidents, the commodification of higher ed, & the rapacious practices of for-profit colleges & private lenders have created today’s student-debt lava pit.

As the notion of student-loan cancellation percolates into the political mainstream, Liebenthal offers a deeply researched, sweeping narrative of our broken system. Rather than give in to despair, she boldly charts a way out, offering hopeful solutions to this seemingly unfixable problem.

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Ryann Liebenthal is a writer & editor living in Oakland, California, who has reported extensively on the student loan crisis. She has written for Mother Jones, n + 1, & the New Republic.