College costs a hundred grand a year now. Families can't pay for it. So they borrow money. Then they have to pay it back.
This is the headline. This is financial news in 2026.
Federal and private lenders will give you money if you promise to give them more money later. Shocked? The system functions precisely as designed. You sign papers. They wire funds. Your kid attends seminars on postcolonial theory. Four years pass. The bill comes due with interest.
Parents apparently believed their children would attend university for free through the power of positive thinking. They were wrong. The tuition showed up anyway. So did the room and board. And the mandatory meal plan that costs eighteen dollars per chicken tender.
Now these families depend on aid. Aid is a friendly word for debt. Debt is when you spend money you don't have and promise to acquire it later through suffering.
The alternative was telling Madison she couldn't go to her dream school. But Madison worked so hard on that essay about overcoming adversity when her iPhone broke during spring break. She deserved this.
Private lenders love this story. They scroll through applications knowing every single one represents a family that did the math, saw the number, and signed anyway. That's not a market failure. That's a market.
Some parents took second mortgages. Others cashed out retirement accounts and ate the penalties. A few just lied on financial aid forms and hoped the system was too overwhelmed to check. It usually is.
The piece ends here because there's nothing left to say. Families borrowed money to buy a product they couldn't afford. The product was delivered. Now they owe money. This will continue until every person involved is dead or until Madison graduates with a 2.7 GPA and moves back home to start her candle business.
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash
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