Paper short abstract:

Based on fieldwork in Wisconsin, USA, this paper explores the impact of student loan debt on present and former university students. This particular debt is temporal and ambiguous, enabling current students to live their everyday life but disabling graduates from achieving the life they envisioned.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores how student loan debt affects present and former American university students. Around 44 million Americans owe $1.48 trillion in student loan debt, and sociologists advocate a "wake-up call" to attend to the lived experience of student loan debtors (Goldrick-Rab 2016).

Based on fieldwork in Wisconsin, USA from August to November 2017, I argue that for people who regard higher education as a means to achieving the American Dream, student loan debt is an ambiguous force that shapes their everyday lives. Americans who have taken on educational loans express vastly different feelings towards debt depending on their status as students or graduates.

Among current students, debt constitutes an inevitable condition for obtaining a degree. Unlike Graeber's argument that debt creates inequality between equals (Graeber 2014), for many students, debt generates a temporary feeling of being equal to others from wealthier backgrounds; they are able to obtain the degree that is widely perceived as a gateway to a financially solid future.

Yet, the impact of student loan debt changes when students become graduates. Those with high amounts of debt indeed experience it as a burden that produces inequalities as graduates compare themselves to peers who are financially better off despite having chosen shorter, if any, educational paths, as well as disappointment and uncertainty due to a lack of employment or lower wages than expected.

Overall, this paper will explore how the affects - and social effects - of debt shift temporally during the course of student loans.