Student Debt Jubilee & Why Higher Education Ought to be Free Podcast

NEW Podcast & Organizer Resources Page

Student Debt Jubilee & Why Higher Education Ought to be Free Podcast

From The Backbone Campaign

We are excited to share with you the podcast of our recent interview Student Debt Jubilee & Why Higher Education Ought to be Free. On this podcast, the 84th in our Conversations with the Cabinet series, we learned from expert organizers about effectively challenging the unjust phenomenon of student loan debt, as well as why free higher education for all at our two- and four-year public universities is a common-sense, fair and affordable alternative.

Quality public higher education is a right and yet this basic right has been violated for 36 million Americans who have student loan debt. In 2010, average student debt upon college graduation was $24,000 (see Huffington Post article). This year, unpaid college student loans exceeded $1 trillion for the first time, and student loan debt is now higher than credit card debt. (see USA Today article). Thus, our country is creating an entire generation of indentured servants, while offering unprecedented wealth to predatory and unregulated private lenders such as Sallie Mae (related Mother Jones and Counterpunch articles).

We were joined by Alan Collinge of Student Loan Justice StudentLoanJustice.org and author of book Student Loan Scam. We also heard from Serge Bakalian, of Default, the Student Loan Documentary, as well as Kyle McCarthy, Default distributor and co founder of Occupy Student Debt and www.Studentdebt.me.

The second half of our Conversation featured Bob Samuels, President of the University Council, AFT in California, author of Why All Higher Public Education Should Be Free and blogger at Changing Universities , as well as Samir Sonti, graduate student in government, free higher education expert, and member of the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education.

Listen to the podcast, then check out our resource list to see how you can help end student debt and bring about free higher education for all in 2012!

Diane Wittner
Co-Producer and Host
Conversations with the Cabinet
Backbone Campaign