Public higher education’s future is being held hostage by financial institutions and actors. How did it get this way?
Lend and Rule reveals the “shadow governance” of debt and credit in the United States higher education system. With sharp and hard-hitting insight, the Coalition Against Campus Debt exposes how institutional debt is a primary driver of university austerity, miseducation, and the deepening of societal inequality.
Addressing how our lives are entangled in a debt economy, they develop the analysis necessary to transform higher education in today’s neoliberal racial capitalist political economy.
Part theoretical analysis, part toolbox for organizers in higher education, Lend and Rule is an invaluable resource for anyone engaged in debt abolition struggles or looking to acquire a critical and transformative vision of higher education today.
About the Authors
Coalition Against Campus Debt is a collective of educators and organizers active in higher education struggles as well as the debt abolition movement more widely for over a decade. Members include Jason Wozniak, Eleni Schirmer, Dana Morrison, Joanna Gonsalves, Richard Levy, Maria del Mar Rosa Rodriguez, Sofya Aptekar, Tracy Berger, and Barbara Madeloni.
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Sofya Aptekar is an associate professor of urban studies at the City University of New York School of Labor and Urban Studies. She is the author of Green Card Soldier (MIT, 2023) and a delegate of the Professional Staff Congress.
Tracy Berger is a mom of two, member of United Campus Workers Colorado, and staff organizer with Higher Education Labor United (HELU). She previously worked as staff at the University of Colorado Boulder and Front Range Community College.
María del Mar Rosa-Rodríguez is an associate professor of Hispanic Studies at the University of Puerto Rico at Cayey, and the president of the faculty union of the UPR, Asociación Puertorriqueña de Profesores Universitarios (APPU). She is also the cofounder of the Junte de Mujeres Sindicalistas, bringing together feminism and syndicalism.
Joanna Gonsalves is a psychology professor at Salem State University and president of the Massachusetts State College Association faculty union.
Rich Levy is a professor of Political Science emeritus at Salem State University and a member of Educators for a Democratic Union. He and Joanna Gonsalves are coordinators of the Massachusetts Campus Debt Reveal and the Massachusetts Anti-Privatization Project, both funded by the Massachusetts Teachers Association.
Barbara Madeloni is an organizer and writer for Labor Notes.
Dana Morrison is an associate professor in the Educational Foundations and Policy Studies Department at West Chester University of Pennsylvania and chapter secretary of the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties.
Eleni Schirmer is a writer living in Montréal. She organizes with the Debt Collective.
Jason Thomas Wozniak is an associate professor in the Educational Foundations and Policy Studies Department, Coordinator of the Transformative Education and Social Change Program, and Co-Director of The Latin American Philosophy of Education Society (LAPES) at West Chester University. He is also a long-term organizer with Debt Collective.
What People Are Saying
“This outstanding book is a crystal-clear analysis of how and why higher education got captured by the finance industry. It's also the definitive guide for those who want to free themselves and their institutions from the sticky trap set by Wall Street.” Andrew Ross, author of Creditocracy: And the Case for Debt Refusal
“Institutional debt is used to push the rising cost of public college education onto students and their families—predominantly Black, Brown, and white working class—while enriching Wall Street and the wealthy. The result is ever increasing student loan debt ($1.7 trillion as of 2023) as college graduates struggle to pay off their student debt and make a living. It’s a textbook case of racialized austerity imposed on an increasingly diverse student population, the effect of which is public colleges and universities that are beholden to bondholders and credit rating agencies, not to the public. It does not have to be this way. In Lend & Rule, the Coalition Against Campus Debt takes on the corporatization of higher ed and makes a definitive case for the urgent role of public higher ed workers’ unions to lead—and win. It is a call for action for workers, students, and the public to fight against racial capitalism and for free public higher education for all.” Rotua Lumbantobing, Professor of Economics at Western Connecticut State University and Vice President of American Association of University Professors
“Lend & Rule is the book that university students and workers have been waiting for. It offers a cutting analysis of how institutional debt makes campus jobs worse and how debt erodes the public mission of education by filling the pockets of financiers with tuition dollars from the nation’s most exploited students. More than that, Lend & Rule offers a positive vision of how to organize against this status quo and make necessary change towards a truly democratic higher education system.” Andy Hines, author of Outside Literary Studies: Black Criticism and the University and the editor of University Keywords
“Lend & Rule is a shocking exposé of the debt crisis no one is talking about. Our colleges and universities are buried in institutional debt, with dire consequences for all of us. This dynamite book shows how to look under the financial hood so we can build well-informed movements with the power to win real change. A must read for everyone who cares about higher education.” Astra Taylor, author of The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart
“As a teacher and union leader that bargains with the third largest school district on behalf of half a million students and thirty thousand educators, I know first hand how big banks manipulate school budgets to gain profits at the expense of our students and classrooms. In Lend & Rule, we hear from visionaries in our movement who show us that a different system is possible, one that allows us to grow and develop ourselves and our communities in ways that won’t result in the immiseration of the many for the benefit of the few. The book also shows how debt is weaponized and racialized to harm the most marginalized in our society, but when we come together to tax the rich and collectivize our institutions, we can provide the public services and accommodations that we all deserve—for free.” Jackson Potter, Chicago Teachers’ Union
“Lend & Rule provides labor organizers, workers, and students in higher education the theoretical analysis and organizing tools we need to transform our public higher education system. Revealing how the ‘shadow governance’ of financial capitalism works, this book opens up new terrains of struggle for education justice.” Todd Wolfson, Associate Professor of Media Studies at Rutgers University and President of American Association of University Professors
“Lend & Rule is simultaneously a fantastic deep dive into a core truth—private finance, free markets, and market competition are incapable of providing a basic public good—and an organizing manual for those committed to protecting and expanding access to higher education.” Donald Cohen, Executive Director of In the Public Interest