From investment to crisis: the student loan story

How did the student loan crisis get so bad?

This week on Connect the Dots, we’ll explore the history of the federal student loan program and how it has impacted a generation of borrowers. 

We spoke with Josh Mitchell, author of “The Debt Trap: How Student Loans Became a National Catastrophe,” and with Elizabeth Tandy Shermer, author of “Indentured Students: How Government-Guaranteed Loans Left Generations Drowning in College Debt,” who both explained how the student loan crisis started from systemic flaws in the 1965 Higher Education Act and how that has helped propel the loan program into a $1.7 trillion industry. 

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