Burdened: Student Debt and the Making of an American Crisis

*ONE OF THE NEW YORKERS BEST BOOKS OF 2024* "A powerful argument for reforming this system."--The New York Times An urgent investigation of student debt in America revealing the corrupt systems, rotten policies, and bad actors that have created a $1.7 trillion crisis. College costs more today than ever and 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, and saving for retirement. The burden weighs heavier on women and black Americans, and 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 and presidents, the commodification of higher ed, and the rapacious practices of for-profit colleges and 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.

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

Review :
"Blistering and impossible to put down, Burdened offers an eye-opening look under the hood of a system that has crushed the dreams of millions of people while also documenting ongoing attempts to transform it. Read this book and prepare to be activated." - Astra Taylor, co-founder of The Debt Collective "[An] unflinching look at the student debt crisis." - San Francisco Chronicle "A powerful argument for reforming this system." - New York Times "An important story, one that provides insight into the crisis facing our educational ecosystem . . . Liebenthal does provide a great service in disproving the notion that nobody saw the student debt crisis coming." - Washington Post "Burdened is the book on student loans I've been waiting for--the book I would send to anyone who just doesn't get it. It's a clarion call for reform and an urgent reminder: even though we've normalized staggering amounts of student debt, it doesn't have to be this way. If you have student debt, this book will feel like turning on the lights." - Anne Helen Petersen, author of Can't Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation "America's student debt crisis is a man-made scandal, one that has benefited a few while burdening millions. Painstakingly researched and powerfully told, Burdened is an essential history for anyone with a stake in American higher education--and that means all of us." - Paul Tough, author of How Children Succeed and The Inequality Machine "A clear and concise guide to why the American student lending system came to be, how it spun out of control, and what an alternative system could look like. Essential reading for borrowers and policymakers alike." - Malcolm Harris, author of Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World "The student debt crisis is not an accident. Burdened will help you understand why." - Sara Goldrick-Rab, author of Paying the Price: College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American Dream "A trenchant examination of how higher education became unaffordable for all but the wealthiest Americans. . . . Liebenthal's remarkably lucid policy discussions are accompanied by penetrating big-picture analysis. This incisive cri de coeur brings clarity to an ostensibly intractable problem." - Publishers Weekly, Starred Review "A well-reasoned argument for remaking the federal student-loan system. Mother Jones writer Liebenthal, who confesses to carrying a heavy debt load herself, examines the system by which so many college students find themselves owing thousands and even hundreds of thousands of dollars to loan agencies--and, too often, in jobs that offer little hope of ever paying them back... A strong case for turning onerous student loans to more economically productive ends--and for rethinking them altogether." - Kirkus Reviews