Student Debt and the Cost of Higher Education

Videos and Documentaries

Student Debt: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
Default: the Student Loan Documentary

Campaigns, Nonprofit Organizations, etc.

Campaigns, Nonprofit Organizations, etc. 

The Campaign for Free College Tuition in Washington State: “The Campaign for Free College Tuition (CFCT) is a non-profit bi-partisan coalition of individuals and groups who believe today’s economy requires the country to make higher education affordable for everyone if we are going to have a workforce with the skills needed for us to compete in the global marketplace. Established as a 501c3 non-profit in 2014, CFCT has been at the forefront of the free college tuition movement since its inception.”

Podcasts 

Dan Denvir, “Student-Debt Capitalism,” The Dig Radio Podcast, April 3, 2018. “It’s obvious that student debt can be an excruciating financial burden. But anthropologist Caitlin Zaloom explains that it has also done a lot to make American families into plunderable financial mines, part of a larger capitalist system that individualizes blame for economic failure and forces families that can to support their children into their twenties while depleting retirement savings. More…

Danny Taylor, Rutgers University, “Workers’ Rights are Students’ Rights,” The Dig Radio Podcast, January 19, 2018. Student workers at Rutgers University are fighting for $15 an hour. Undergraduate history major and dining-hall worker Danny Taylor of @RutgersUSAS talks about their struggle. More…

Articles, Reports, Books, and other Resources 

Katherine M. Broton, Sara Goldrick-Rob, “Going Without: An Exploration of Food and Housing Insecurity among Undergraduates,” Educational Researcher, December 7, 2017. More…

Robert Kelchen, Sara Goldrick-Rob, and Braden Hosch, “The Costs of College Attendance: Examining Variation and Consistency in Institutional Living Cost Allowances,” The Journal of Higher Education (2017) Discussions of college costs often focus on tuition and fees, but living cost allowances for room, board, and other expenses account for more than half of the total cost of attending college. More…

The Hope Center at Temple University is engaged in “the nation’s longest-running annual assessment of basic needs security (affordable food and housing) among college students.” (Data from Oregon and Washington universities can be found in some of their studies. More…