The Debt Trap: How Student Loans Became a National Catastrophe

"If you remember the days of people working their way through college doing shifts on the docks or driving a cab – or lived that yourself – you might be wondering why those days are long gone unless you’re, say, an equity fund baby or the Olsen twins. Josh Mitchell, a Wall Street Journal reporter, explains why: government policies designed to help Americans compete in the global technological race, but also an unholy alliance of funding systems, lax regulation and institutional competition that has bid up the price of a college education far beyond the rate of inflation and far beyond the ability of many people to pay. This might be an unlikely choice for a book club pick but hear me out. You could do worse than to educate yourself about how a system that is designed to improve access to education seems to be doing the opposite."