Publishers Weekly
06/28/2021
The $1.6 trillion Americans owe in student loans is greater than the size of the Canadian economy, notes Wall Street Journal reporter Mitchell in this meticulous, eye-opening history of the student debt crisis. Though the G.I. Bill effectively paid for mass higher education in the years after WWII, Congress rejected Harry Truman’s attempt to make the first two years of college free. Instead, the U.S. government assumed all the risk of student loans, while banks and colleges profited. Universities raised tuition costs because consumers could simply borrow more to pay for it, and banks extended government-guaranteed loans to students who had little hope of paying them back. Mitchell poignantly recounts the stories of borrowers including Lisa (no last name given), a 54-year-old single mother of two who took out loans to pay for her undergraduate and graduate degrees and now is on the hook for $96,820, on top of dealing with breast cancer and anxieties over her daughter’s student debt. Mitchell masterfully explains how America got itself into this debacle, though readers will wish for a more robust inquiry into the solutions he supports, which include forgiving interest on student loans, making community college “truly free,” and government funding for apprenticeship programs. Still, this is an immersive and illuminating introduction to a hot-button issue. (Aug.)
From the Publisher
"A devastating account...The story he tells is so infuriating that it could induce apoplexy in a Zen monk.” —The Wall Street Journal
"Necessary reading for any politician or activist who wants to change the way we make college education available to all." —The New York Times
"Proves the old adage that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions." —Forbes
"Vivid and compelling" —Chicago Tribune
"A shocking history, dominated by an attitude of exploitation toward American students and their families."
—Literary Hub
"The book is sure to garner attention, as well as make readers take a close look at the cost of higher education. Parents, students, and educators will find it enthralling and possibly be moved to push for industry reforms."
—Booklist, starred review
“This urgent report makes a convincing case for reforming the loan program to allow students a fair shot at college, at a reasonable price. An alarming study of an economic crisis long in the making—and entirely avoidable.”
—Kirkus Reviews
"A deeply reported, jaw-dropping book. A must-read for every student, parent, and educator. Through engaging storytelling, this timely book helps us understand, in the same way as The Big Short did with housing, how we allowed a student-loan system started with good intentions during the Great Society to grow into an uncontrolled behemoth that has left tens of millions of Americans saddled with trillions in debt."
—Jeffrey Selingo, New York Times bestselling author of Who Gets In and Why and There Is Life After College
“A masterfully written, surprising, and deeply reported book that is studded with breathtaking insights on every page. The Debt Trap is about more than student debt — it’s the true story of how America’s ladder of opportunity was turned into a debtor’s prison. It’s all here: Well-intentioned government programs gone awry, corporate corruption, exploitation, and the unbreakable hope of American people working tirelessly for a better life. An indispensable book to understand one of the most urgent problems in our country today.”
—Christopher Leonard, New York Times bestselling author of Kochland
"A powerful investigation into one of the most important economic crises of our time. The storytelling is lively and emotive, which is crucial for understanding the human impact of towers of student debt on everyday Americans. The book should be read by politicians, parents and students alike as a cautionary tale of how government policies can bring enormous gains while also wreaking havoc on lives."
—Brad Hope, New York Times bestselling co-author of The Billion Dollar Whale
"Almost out of nowhere, student debt became a one trillion dollar problem—not just for the 43 million people who suffer under its weight but the entire society. In his rich and poignant book, Josh Mitchell traces this harrowing history, how policy makers' good intentions in Washington DC and corporate executives' greed and exploitation has led to stifled lives and snuffed out dreams of betterment."
—Jesse Eisinger, author of Chickenshit Club
"If your instinct is that there has to be a good story behind how Americans have collectively racked up $1.6 trillion of college debt — much of it never to be repaid and with the taxpayers holding the bag – Wall Street Journal reporter Josh Mitchell's "The Debt Trap: How Student Loans Became a National Catastrophe" will confirm your suspicions with a vengeance."
—Business Insider
“If you’ve don’t think a book about the student loan crisis can read like a fast-paced thriller — complete with passages that will leave you exclaiming in shock out loud — this book will prove you wrong.”
—New York Post
Kirkus Reviews
2021-05-20
Thoroughgoing report on the student-loan crisis.
Wall Street Journal writer Mitchell writes that student debt in this country “is the size of Canada’s economy,” amounting to $1.6 trillion. That debt is coupled with crippling terms that burden many borrowers with payments that will last throughout their working lives, mostly to service interest, and higher education has not delivered jobs that pay enough to cover them. Indeed, “far from making college affordable, student debt enabled schools to raise their prices in perpetuity, creating a higher education industrial complex that has driven up the price of college—and graduate school—to unprecedented levels.” It’s a vicious chicken-and-egg situation: Student loans are easily obtainable, so easy that many workers in stressful economic times return to school simply to qualify to take out loans to survive; because the money is so abundant, schools, underfunded in the case of most public institutions, feel no restraint to curb their costs. Mitchell tells the story of one woman who married a man who took advantage of her financially, then returned to school in order to better her job prospects and wound up owing a huge debt. She was one of the few to be allowed to discharge her debt legally, but only because a collection agent sympathized with her as she battled cancer. Such circumstances of emergency were not in the design of the loan program, which dates to the administration of Lyndon Johnson. As its founder told the author, “we unleashed a monster.” It’s a monster indeed, and no president since has done anything to tame it. Mitchell notes that under the Obama presidency, “Black families got into debt more than families of any other racial or ethnic group.” This urgent report makes a convincing case for reforming the loan program to allow students “a fair shot at college, at a reasonable price.”
An alarming study of an economic crisis long in the making—and entirely avoidable.
