The Otey Scruggs Memorial Lecture

Why Do 45 million Americans Owe $1.8 trillion in Student Debt Many insist that today’s student debt crisis is the unintended consequence of programs started with the best of intentions. But Democrats and Republicans intentionally created a student loan program, which has disproportionately left students of color, especially women, drowning in college debt.

Elizabeth Tandy Shermer is an associate professor of history at Loyola University Chicago, where she teaches courses on labor, capitalism, and politics. She has written about those topics in op-eds, academic articles, and scholarly books, including Sunbelt Capitalism (2013) and The Right and Labor.

The Otey Scruggs Memorial Lecture honors a long-time, former member of the Maxwell history faculty, and is made possible through the generous support of Jeffrey Scruggs (the honoree’s son) and Jeffrey’s wife, Robbin E. Mitchell

This lecture will later be viewable via maxwell.syr.edu/hist.