Tuition Increases Also Don’t Stop for Pandemics: Student Debt Realities in the Age of COVID-19

ABSTRACT

In this chapter, we examine the relationship between pandemic tuition increases and student debt, the latter not only an American experience but a growing global concern. In the midst of the fight against COVID, many administrators in the U.S. decided to increase tuition for students and their families, in many instances, several times over, in what we described as akin to other forms of price-gouging of vulnerable people and communities during disasters. Additionally, we argue that the link between tuition increases and student debt is not accidental but an outcome of decades of policy decisions that have led to a systemic failure of government, particularly in the United States, to support the institution of higher education, and education more broadly. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.