"If You, an Individual, Want This Service, You'll Have to Pay for It, and Pay Big"

"The state should not 'subsidize intellectual curiosity,' Ronald Reagan told reporters in 1967, back when he was just the governor of California. At the time he took office, California had one of the most pristine public university systems in the nation, but Reagan saw the universities as fertile ground for budget cuts and a happy target in the culture war he was waging. It was a two-birds scenario for the burgeoning conservative lawmaker. Attacking the public system would not only solidify his legacy as a budget hawk but would directly drain the main source of income and professional growth for both his academic and working-class detractors. He would bring this same model to the presidency. As Devin Fergus, a senior fellow at Demos and professor of African American and African Studies at Ohio State University, wrote in a piece tracing this history for The Washington Post, federal spending on higher education 'was slashed by some 25 percent between 1980 and 1985,' and the Reagan administration 'shifted the federal government's focus from providing students higher education grants to providing loans.'"

Nick Martin at The New Republic reports on efforts to organize a student-loan strike.