Dissent and Jacobin will cohost a discussion on student debt at Left Forum, taking place March 16–18 at Pace University. Register here.

If nothing changes, student debt will haunt today’s youth into old age. How did we get locked into debt, who’s profiting from the status quo, and how can we reclaim our futures?

The Daily estimates that for students in the class of 2034, a college education in the United States will cost between $81,000 and $422,320. College tuition rises far faster than the rate of inflation, while median family incomes decline. According to the Project on Student Debt, two-thirds of college seniors graduated in debt in 2010, at an average of $25,250. They faced the highest youth unemployment rates in decades.