Written by Dr. Melik Peter Khoury
If colleges cannot stop extracting wealth under the guise of opportunity, their unraveling will not be tragic but inevitable. It will be the overdue reckoning of institutions complicit in a system never designed for scale, governed by those who have never known financial precarity, and founded with noble intentions that have been systematically corrupted.
The Quiet Signature
It starts with a pen on paper. An eighteen-year-old barely old enough to rent a car signs a promissory note, promising decades of repayment in exchange for the hope of a degree. For families across the United States, this ritual has become less a choice than a rite of passage. Unlike a mortgage or a retirement account, a student loan is not about building wealth. It has become a lifeline to prevent decline, the middle class’s quiet bargain to hold on a little longer.
The numbers sharpen the picture. Since 1980, public college tuition has increased by more than 200 percent above inflation, while median wages have remained essentially unchanged. Federal student debt now exceeds $ 1.7 trillion, disproportionately carried by middle-income households. Student loans are no longer simply about financing education. They function as a shadow safety net, filling the gaps left by stagnant wages, rising healthcare costs, and soaring housing prices.
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