More Student Loans, Higher Tuition: Failing to Make the Connection

One of the most striking features of modern university life has been the sharp increase in the cost of attending college and the closely associated growth in federal student loan debt. Consequently, the decision about if and where to go to college, and how to finance it, is truly a momentous one for many families. Caitlin Zaloom’s Indebted attempts to provide a needed and timely assessment of how families have coped with college related decision-making. While Prof. Zaloom makes some useful observations and pinpoints some dilemmas that many families face, generally I found the book extremely disappointing.

While the book fails on several grounds, the most fundamental problem is that Zaloom makes multiple assertions that are flat out factually incorrect or are highly dubious and unsubstantiated. For example, speaking about proprietary higher education, Zaloom talks about “the booming for-profit industry,”