Mortgaging Human Potential: Student Indebtedness and the Practices of the Neoliberal State.

Abstract

Neoliberal structural shifts, both nationally and globally, are seen in all aspects of human life. Nothing is more drastic than the impact of the neoliberal shift on the place, role, position and structure of higher education in American culture and social structure. Dominant discourses have changed from characterizing education as a public good to viewing education as an individual private investment. Under current federal and state educational policies, students are required to pay a high price for their higher educations in tuition and in the repayment of interest bearing loans. The result is that many low- and middle-income students are either prevented from attending college, or they are required to assume an enormous debt load, equivalent to a thirty-year home mortgage, to obtain a university education.