ABSTRACT
Student debt is a major vector of identity for rising generations in the US, indicating the breakdown of what educational theorists call the generational compact. The entries report constant stress and anxiety over it, symptoms like sleeplessness, crying jags, and anger, descending into depression and bleeding over to other parts of their lives and to those around them, and sometimes leading to breakdowns and suicide. The entries suggest a few correctives to commonplaces about student debt. Because it only appeared on mainstream radar after the financial crisis, a common perception holds that it is only a relatively recent problem. The entries also tell of disillusionment with higher education and more generally the American dream, and of political alienation as a borrower having little recourse. All too frequently, student debt perversely turns the good that education promises into a draconian experience.
