THE MIDDLE-CLASS DEBT SENTENCE
THE KEYS TO THE KINGDOM ARE NOW CHAINS
Or: How Your Diploma Became a Ball and Chain, and Your Basement Became Your Child's Studio Apartment
Once upon a time in America, there was a simple formula for success: Study hard. Go to college. Get a good job. Buy a house. Raise a family. Retire comfortably. Pass it on to your kids.
Congratulations! That formula has been cancelled, shredded, and replaced with a new one: Study hard. Go to college. Drown in debt. Move back in with your parents. Delay everything. Own nothing. Be miserable.
Welcome to the neo-feudal "Ownership Society"—where the only people who actually own anything are the billionaire oligarchs at the top, and the rest of us are just renting our existence, one loan payment at a time.
For generations, a college education was sold as the golden ticket to the middle class. It was the key that unlocked the kingdom of homeownership, financial security, and upward mobility. State governments heavily subsidized public universities. Tuition was low—sometimes free. The GI Bill sent millions to college after World War II. California's Master Plan for Higher Education made the University of California system tuition-free for residents. College was considered a public good, an investment in the nation's future.
Then something shifted.
In the late 1960s, as students protested and demanded change, politicians began to see higher education not as a public good but as a private luxury. Ronald Reagan, as governor of California, led the charge, slashing funding for the UC system and imposing tuition for the first time. As president in the 1980s, he continued the assault, cutting federal education budgets and shifting financial aid from grants to loans. The message was clear: If you want an education, you pay for it.
And pay we did.
The Defunding of the American Dream
Over the past four decades, state funding for public colleges has been systematically gutted. During economic downturns—the early 2000s recession, the 2008 financial crisis—higher education became the "elastic" part of state budgets, the first thing cut when times got tough. States prioritized Medicaid, K-12 education, and prisons. Colleges were left to fend for themselves.
To survive, universities did what any desperate institution does: they raised prices. Tuition at public four-year universities has skyrocketed by over 100% since the 1980s, adjusted for inflation. What was once affordable—or free—now costs tens of thousands of dollars per year.
The result? A generation shackled by debt before they even start their careers.
The $1.7 Trillion Anchor
Today, Americans collectively owe more than $1.7 trillion in student loan debt. That's more than the entire GDP of Canada. It's the second-largest form of household debt in the country, trailing only mortgages—and for many young people, it's the debt that prevents them from ever getting a mortgage.
The average federal borrower owes around $39,075. Graduate students and those who attended for-profit colleges often owe far more—sometimes exceeding $100,000. Monthly payments average $277, but for many, they're much higher. And unlike other forms of debt, student loans are nearly impossible to discharge in bankruptcy. They follow you. Forever.
This isn't just a financial burden. It's a life sentence.
The Anti-Mortgage: How Student Loans Kill the American Dream
Here's the cruel irony: For most of the 20th century, the primary form of middle-class debt was a mortgage—considered "good debt" because it built wealth and equity. You borrowed money to buy an asset that appreciated over time. Homeownership was the foundation of middle-class stability and generational wealth.
But now, young adults are saddled with student loan debt before they can even think about buying a home. The student loan has become the anti-mortgage—a liability that prevents the acquisition of the traditional middle-class asset.
Student loan payments increase a borrower's debt-to-income ratio, making it harder to qualify for a mortgage. They drain savings that could go toward a down payment. They delay homeownership by years, sometimes decades. Homeownership rates for Americans aged 25-34 have plummeted. An entire generation is locked out of the primary mechanism for building wealth in this country.
Your parents bought a house in their twenties. You? You're 35, living in their basement, wondering if you'll ever be able to afford a starter home in a market where prices have tripled while wages have stagnated.
The Oligarchs' Master Plan
This didn't happen by accident. It's the result of deliberate policy choices made by a billionaire oligarchy that has systematically dismantled the democratic reforms that built the greatest middle class in history.
Here's the playbook:
- Defund public education. Make college unaffordable without massive debt.
- Ship good jobs overseas. Eliminate the manufacturing base that once provided middle-class wages without a degree.
- Stagnate wages. Ensure that even college graduates can't earn enough to pay off their loans, buy homes, or start families.
- Consolidate wealth and power. Use that wealth to capture the political system, pack the courts, and roll back regulations that protect workers and consumers.
- Rebrand it. Call it the "Ownership Society"—while ensuring that ordinary Americans own nothing.
The result? A neo-feudal system where a small class of oligarchs owns everything—the land, the companies, the politicians, the courts—and the rest of us are reduced to serfs, working to pay off debts we can never escape, renting homes we'll never own, in an economy rigged against us.
The Brookings Reality Check
A recent Brookings Institution report confirms what millions of Americans already know: "In every corner of the country, the middle class struggles with affordability."
One-third of middle-class families can't afford basic necessities like food, housing, and child care. Racial disparities are stark—families of color earn significantly less than white families, even within the middle class. In all 160 metro areas analyzed, at least 20% of middle-class earners can't afford the cost of living.
This is the "Ownership Society" in action: a society where the middle class is being systematically squeezed out of existence.
The Latest Insult: Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill"
As if things weren't bad enough, the Trump administration's recent policy changes are pouring gasoline on the fire. Under the "One Big Beautiful Bill," the definition of "professional degrees" has been rewritten to exclude nursing, physical therapy, social work, and education from higher lending limits.
Let that sink in. At a time when we face critical shortages of nurses and teachers—professions dominated by women and essential to society—the government is making it harder for students to afford the education needed to enter these fields.
Graduate PLUS loans, which previously covered the full cost of attendance, will be eliminated for new students starting in July 2026. Borrowing limits are being slashed. The message is clear: If you want to be a nurse, a teacher, or a social worker, you're on your own.
This isn't just bad policy. It's a targeted attack on the professions that hold our society together, and on the women and minorities who disproportionately fill these roles.
Your Kid in the Basement: A National Epidemic
So here we are. Your child graduated with honors. They did everything right. They studied hard, got into a good school, earned their degree. And now they're living in your basement, working a job that doesn't pay enough to cover rent, let alone student loans, a car payment, and the dream of someday, maybe, possibly buying a home or starting a family.
This isn't a personal failure. It's a systemic betrayal.
An entire generation has been sold a lie. They were told that education was the path to prosperity. Instead, it became a trap—a debt sentence that has turned the American Dream into a cruel joke.
Taking Back Our Democracy
But here's the thing: It doesn't have to be this way.
The oligarchs didn't build this system overnight, and we can dismantle it. But it requires action—collective, sustained, unrelenting action.
We must organize. Join movements fighting for student debt cancellation, affordable housing, living wages, and the restoration of public funding for education.
We must protest. Make noise. Demand change. Refuse to accept a system that treats education as a commodity and students as profit centers.
We must communicate. Talk to your neighbors, your coworkers, your family. Share the truth about what's happening. Break through the propaganda.
And we must vote. Vote like our democracy depends on it—because it does. Vote out the politicians who serve the oligarchs. Vote in leaders who will fight for the middle class, rein in corporate power, and restore the promise of opportunity for all.
The Supreme Court has been packed with oligarch-friendly justices. Congress has been captured by corporate interests. But the power still rests with the people—if we choose to use it.
The Choice Is Ours
We stand at a crossroads. One path leads to a future where the middle class is a distant memory, where a college education is a luxury only the wealthy can afford, where homeownership is a pipe dream, and where our children inherit not opportunity but debt and despair.
The other path leads to a restored democracy, where education is a public good, where work pays a living wage, where housing is affordable, and where the American Dream is more than just a marketing slogan.
The oligarchs are counting on us to stay silent, stay divided, and stay defeated.
Let's prove them wrong.
The middle class isn't dead yet. But it's time to fight like it is.
Because if we don't, that diploma on the wall won't be a symbol of achievement—it'll be a death certificate for the American Dream.
In every corner of the country, the middle class struggles with affordability | Brookings https://www.brookings.edu/articles/in-every-corner-of-the-country-the-middle-class-struggles-with-affordability/
