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Preface Every author takes pains to articulate just how many people have assisted in the creation of the final published work. What is not always explained is the personal motivation behind the exploration of a book’s topic, especially in the realm of social science. Through a series of regrettable personal and financial decisions from ages 21 to 28, I accumulated over $90,000 in student debt, which then com- pounded. After taking several more years to complete my doctoral disserta- tion in 2014, I resolved to put away that topic (coded racial campaign rhetoric for statewide offices in New England) for a time and try to focus on some- thing that had substantive and even material importance for me and others like me. It took some serious thought to define just what that topic would be, partly because I had trouble situating myself in a community: Political science academics? Millennials? Generation X? None of these seemed to be quite right. My thought process was directed toward my six-figure student debt payments that would soon come due for the first time in over a decade of postsecondary education, and the need to reconcile my employment and financial realities with those balances and accounts. I began to read about student loan borrowers’ experiences online in a series of message boards that were created to facilitate people sharing their stories, especially in the wake of Occupy Wall Street in 2011, in which I was never involved. I began to see that grassroots political groups had formed in relation to the issue. More traditional political institutions, such as labor unions and political parties, were facilitating the advancement of an agenda in the halls of Congress and state legislatures that would advocate for those who, like me, had not sought fame and fortune in their education, but had found their vocation and had made some poor financial decisions in attempt- ing to fulfill it. Having long since abandoned the idea of a career in political activism and advocacy, I thought I would rather make a career of political analysis than