Credit: Jared Rodriguez/truthout

Credit: Jared Rodriguez/truthout

When tuition increases at public colleges gained steam in the early 1990s, I worried that no one seemed to take the astronomical price hikes seriously. Now there is a new crisis upon us: The very politicians who jacked up rates at our public colleges have bold, dangerous plans to “save” us.

Former Republican Governor of Indiana and now Purdue President Mitch Daniels recently received national praise with his “Back a Boiler” initiative, ostensibly meant to address the skyrocketing student debt load. On the face of it, the plan seems far more humane than the policies of the private credit collectors who service the nation’s $1.2 trillion student debt burden. However on closer examination, unlike credit card debt, this student debt cannot be erased through bankruptcy protections.

This, unfortunately, is the portrait of the new university: low-wage faculty teaching students who have mortgaged their futures to loan sharks.

In exchange for an education loan of say, $15,000, the lender would require a percentage of a student’s future earnings in […]

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