Student debt Archives - Public Seminar

Higher Ed

Paying for College Was Already Stressful. Then Came Trump and DOGE.

A Q and A on today’s higher ed money worries

April 16, 2025 • by Center for New York City Affairs and Kim Nauer

Urban Matters: Kim, there’s certainly a lot of confusion about the future of the US Department of Education right now. I know you were in Washington earlier this month looking for some answers. But first: For those who haven’t gone through the process—or who have blissfully forgotten what it can be ...

Paying for College Was Already Stressful. Then Came Trump and DOGE.

Corporations

An Ethics of Refusal

Beyond “The Great Resignation”

November 14, 2022 • by Benjamin P. Davis

In the United States, we live in a country where someone who works for a law firm that services Big Oil is by and large considered intelligent and successful, maybe even ethical due to their pro bono representation, no matter that such a firm, for instance, did not represent foreclosure ...

Higher Ed

Three Ways the United States Should Rethink the Economics of Higher Education

Now working in education in Australia, there’s something former New School Provost Tim Marshall doesn’t miss about the U.S. system

November 7, 2022 • by Tim Marshall

While tuition fees in Australia remain modest in comparison to the US, the design of the repayment scheme is also worth consideration. This scheme is available to students attending both government, and the growing number of accredited private, institutions. Unlike the US, where private lenders and servicers play an important ...

Higher Ed

The Best Student Debt Forgiveness? Discharge Loans Already Paid

But to do that, the Department of Education would have to release its data

September 21, 2022 • by Susan F. Feiner

Today, in some states you can even lose your driver’s license due to unpaid student debt. Senior citizens on Social Security can have their monthly checks garnished by student loan debt collectors without a court order, an authority that is unique. Other borrowers have had wages, alimony, or IRS tax ...

The Best Student Debt Forgiveness? Discharge Loans Already Paid

Education

The Politics of Student Loan Cancellation

The American Left needs to keep pressing for more ambitious solutions to the problem of student debt

September 15, 2022 • by Jackson Todd

Biden’s action on student debt indicates that Americans may be ready to move on from the austerity politics that defined the Republican Party from Ronald Reagan to Donald Trump....

The Politics of Student Loan Cancellation

Education

Student Loans: The Origins of a Racket

The road to student loan hell was paved with good intentions

February 18, 2021 • by Devan Lindey

"Education can lift people and propel the country’s economy, but it can’t do that if it leaves many of its beneficiaries weighed down by life-altering amounts of debt." - Devon Lindey ...

Education

Save Higher Education (From Itself)!

A federal bailout for students, faculty, and staff at colleges and universities

July 1, 2020 • by Julia Ott

More than three months into a national emergency, neither the leaders of America’s colleges and universities nor our elected officials have offered any plan to uphold higher education or any vision for its future. The ad-hoc responses of individual institutions do not suffice. Without federal relief and concerted reform, our ...

Education

Academia, Grassroots Organizations, and Debt

Towards a Genuine Collaboration

April 22, 2019 • by Ann Larson

What if the president of the United States, along with Congress, cancelled student debt and made public college tuition free? Just a few years ago, these goals would have seemed like the pie-in-the sky dreams of a marginal sect. Today, free public college is supported by major presidential candidates, including ...

Academia, Grassroots Organizations, and Debt

Uncategorized

Starbucks Goes to College

June 23, 2014 • by Bryant Simon

I wrote a book about Starbucks a few years ago, so my email started to buzz with Google alerts when the company announced that it would help to provide free education for its employees. The New York Times, the Huffington Post, and Business Week, among others, jumped ...