Sunk Cost - by Jillian Berman (Hardcover)

About the Book

"Student loan horror stories are seemingly endless. And yet, since research continually shows that the clearest road to financial stability is a college degree, Americans continue to make the optimistic choice to attend college. Whether they attend state schools or elite privates, community colleges or for-profit behemoths, they will almost certainly need loans to make it to college. If and when those students receive their diplomas, however, student loan payments quickly follow. With rising housing and childcare costs, even those with secure, full-time employment can find it difficult to make ends meet. Many Americans would insist that they chose to enter into debt and should be responsible for those choices. In this book, journalist Jillian Berman shows that focus on personal choice misses the forest for the trees. Through the stories of a diverse group of American college students, history, and policy analysis, Berman demonstrates that the college loan system is built to generate debt. First, federal loans-initiatives designed to support education-are surprisingly difficult to pay down. Second, there is no truly public option for college, making debt all but inevitable. Both of these issues initiated in and were exacerbated by years of policy decisions influenced by corporate lobbyists. The way the student loan system is set up-with guaranteed payback to institutions from the federal government-encourages abuses from all players. The government simply provides too much incentive for schools to list high tuitions and recoup all those funds through government reimbursement. While President Joe Biden's aggressive plan to cancel student debt was overturned by the Supreme Court, his administration has been chipping away at the debt crisis through piecemeal legislation. Berman shows how these measures have helped borrowers, but ultimately argues that these small fixes won't get at the structural problems she identifies. If college continues to get more and more expensive (and for-profit), we'll keep throwing good money after bad"--

Book Synopsis

Exposes the forgotten origins of the student loan system, how politicians have attempted to fix it, and the life-altering damage borrowers face.

Student-loan horror stories are a dime a dozen. But students today are faced with a seemingly insurmountable paradox: Research consistently shows that the clearest viable option to financial stability is a college degree. But if and when Americans decide to pursue diplomas, student loan payments quickly follow, and even after securing full-time employment, many borrowers struggle to make ends meet for years. In Sunk Cost, journalist Jillian Berman explores how the nation's student loan program went from a well-intentioned initiative aimed at helping low- and middle-income students afford college to one that traps borrowers in long-term debt.

Berman interviewed dozens of borrowers and policymakers and dug into the archives to unearth the true causes of the student loan problem. A couple of generations ago, policy makers generously subsidized Americans' college educations because they knew it would be advantageous for the entire country: a more educated population meant better quality of life for all. But today, higher education is viewed as an individual goal, so students and their families are expected to be on the hook for it themselves. Berman explains how this enormous shift happened, which industries benefit from it, and what it means for college-going Americans today. She shares real-life stories of college graduates who are being crushed under some of the harshest consequences of the student loan system. These borrowers pursued higher education in hopes of a better life and yet some have been trapped in debt for decades, making it difficult to put food on the table, much less imagine a life beyond debt.

By connecting personal accounts to the policy history of student loans, Berman makes clear that if American society continues to push students toward higher education, but fails to truly subsidize it, the financial strain will become unbearable for all but the most privileged. The current system is broken, but Berman proposes that significant changes are possible, and will require political will from state lawmakers and Congress, along with a philosophical shift, to tackle one of the largest consumer finance challenges of our time.

Review Quotes

"Readers wondering how debt relief became a top-tier political issue should confront the stories in Sunk Cost. It tells the same story as that chart I saw over a decade ago: The system is not working for a sizeable share of borrowers. A new approach to college finance, with substantial new investments, is needed to finally take advantage of higher education's potential to build stronger lives and a stronger society."-- "James Kvaal, Washington Monthly"

"A rigorous and lucid account of an opaque bureaucratic history."-- "Publishers Weekly"

"Finally, the kind of reporting that this major economic and social driver of recent American history deserves. Student loan debt is shaping the present and future of America, and Jillian Berman shows how and why." --Anna Sale, host of 'Death, Sex & Money' and author of 'Let's Talk About Hard Things'

"We all owe Jillian Berman a huge debt for her years of incisive reporting from the frontlines of the student loan crisis. Now her deep knowledge, insight, and empathy are on full display in this incredible and timely book. Read it to understand how we got here and why we can't afford not to cancel student debt."--Astra Taylor, author of 'The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart'

About the Author

Jillian Berman is an award-winning reporter at MarketWatch, where she has covered student debt for a decade. Before her time at MarketWatch, Jillian wrote about food and retail companies at HuffPost. Her work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and USA Today.