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It also is likely to overlap with ADegreeInUseless: it's easier to justify student debt if it sets you up for a high-paying career such as in law or medicine or engineering, as opposed to an ExpertInUnderwaterBasketWeaving. Someone who doesn't feel their degree was worth the money is likely to feel it even more keenly as the bills for their student loans start coming in. Or other people may be less sympathetic to the plight of a graduate who's struggling to land a job with a master's in Television Trope Studies.
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It also is likely to overlap with ADegreeInUseless: it's easier to justify student debt if it sets you up for a high-paying career such as in law or medicine or engineering, as opposed to an ExpertInUnderwaterBasketWeaving. Someone who doesn't feel their degree was worth the money is likely to feel it even more keenly as the bills for their student loans start coming in. Or other people may be less sympathetic to the plight of a graduate who's struggling to land a job with a master's in Television Trope Studies.
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* ''Series/FamilyMatters'' was one of the first shows to address the rising costs of colleges and the dangers of student loans. Laura achieves her lifelong dream of getting into Harvard University, but, in an [[AvertedTrope aversion]] of IvyLeagueForEveryone, can't afford tuition on scholarships alone. She's also ineligible for financial aid because her parents make too much money to apply--but when Carl tries to get a loan at the bank, he learns that he doesn't make ''enough'' money to qualify for one, meaning that there's no way for Laura to attend Harvard without sending the family into massive debt. When he breaks the bad news to Harriette, Laura inadvertently overhears and, after breaking down crying for a moment, tells her parents that she's decided not to go to Harvard on the pretense that she doesn't want to move that far away.
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This is a common way to garner sympathy for your protagonist. As TheOneWhoMadeItOut suggests, college is viewed as one way for [[RagsToRiches an impoverished person to ascend social ranks]], but it's not as simple as that. Debt particularly affects low-income people, both for the obvious reasons and inexperience with financial systems. As a result, student debt is often used as a shorthand for someone who is ambitious and talented, but hampered by social inequality who has to resort to increasingly extreme measures. They may become a BurgerFool, an AlmightyJanitor, get landed with a SoulCrushingDeskJob or a SoulSuckingRetailJob, or end up in circumstances to say IWasYoungAndNeededTheMoney.
This is not an exclusively [[{{Eagleland}} American trope]], but it is a ''majority'' American trope because, in many other countries, college tuition is publicly funded, and due to the association between college education and UsefulNotes/TheAmericanDream. It's also one of TheNewestOnesInTheBook: until [[UsefulNotes/TheEighties the Reagan Administration]], while tuition wasn't free, it was subsidized to where you could easily cover the remainder with a part-time job at minimum wage (which was also much higher relative to the cost of living). Furthermore, interest rates have rocketed since [[TurnOfTheMillennium The Great Recession]] so that even being a ScholarshipStudent isn't enough to save you from debt. It can affect parents and family members as well as the students or former students themselves. Since British higher education was reformed in TheNineties and formerly free tuition supported by outright living grants are a thing of the past, the rocketing costs of tuition fees and even basic living expenses--now covered by long-term loans on the American model--are causing more and more problems and hardship to graduates.
This is not an exclusively [[{{Eagleland}} American trope]], but it is a ''majority'' American trope because, in many other countries, college tuition is publicly funded, and due to the association between college education and UsefulNotes/TheAmericanDream. It's also one of TheNewestOnesInTheBook: until [[UsefulNotes/TheEighties the Reagan Administration]], while tuition wasn't free, it was subsidized to where you could easily cover the remainder with a part-time job at minimum wage (which was also much higher relative to the cost of living). Furthermore, interest rates have rocketed since [[TurnOfTheMillennium The Great Recession]] so that even being a ScholarshipStudent isn't enough to save you from debt. It can affect parents and family members as well as the students or former students themselves. Since British higher education was reformed in TheNineties and formerly free tuition supported by outright living grants are a thing of the past, the rocketing costs of tuition fees and even basic living expenses--now covered by long-term loans on the American model--are causing more and more problems and hardship to graduates.
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This is a common way to garner sympathy for your protagonist. As TheOneWhoMadeItOut suggests, college is viewed as one way for [[RagsToRiches an impoverished person to ascend social ranks]], but it's not as simple as that. Debt particularly affects low-income people, both for the obvious reasons and inexperience with financial systems. As a result, student debt is often used as a shorthand for someone who is ambitious and talented, talented but hampered by social inequality who and has to resort to increasingly extreme measures. They may become a BurgerFool, an AlmightyJanitor, get landed with a SoulCrushingDeskJob or a SoulSuckingRetailJob, or end up in circumstances to say IWasYoungAndNeededTheMoney.
This is not an exclusively [[{{Eagleland}} American trope]], but it is a ''majority'' American trope because, in many other countries, college tuition is publicly funded, and due to the association between college education and UsefulNotes/TheAmericanDream. It's also one of TheNewestOnesInTheBook: until [[UsefulNotes/TheEighties the Reagan Administration]], while tuition wasn't free, it was subsidized to where you could easily cover the remainder with a part-time job at minimum wage (which was also much higher relative to the cost of living). Furthermore, interest rates have rocketed since [[TurnOfTheMillennium The Great Recession]] sothat even being a ScholarshipStudent isn't enough to save you from debt. It can affect parents and family members as well as the students or former students themselves. Since British higher education was reformed in TheNineties and formerly free tuition supported by outright living grants are is a thing of the past, the rocketing costs of tuition fees and even basic living expenses--now covered by long-term loans on the American model--are causing more and more problems and hardship to graduates.
This is not an exclusively [[{{Eagleland}} American trope]], but it is a ''majority'' American trope because, in many other countries, college tuition is publicly funded, and due to the association between college education and UsefulNotes/TheAmericanDream. It's also one of TheNewestOnesInTheBook: until [[UsefulNotes/TheEighties the Reagan Administration]], while tuition wasn't free, it was subsidized to where you could easily cover the remainder with a part-time job at minimum wage (which was also much higher relative to the cost of living). Furthermore, interest rates have rocketed since [[TurnOfTheMillennium The Great Recession]] so
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* ''Series/VeronicaMars'': Used to justify CaliforniaUniversity and to continue EveryoneWentToSchoolTogether in Season 3. Veronica got into [[EliteSchoolMeansEliteBrain Stanford]] in Season 2, but her AlcoholicParent, Liane, stole her college fund after Veronica put it up for rehab. As a result, she has to go to [[CaliforniaUniversity Hearst]] because of the lower costs and since she got an academic scholarship. This is [[HandWave hand-waved]] in [[Film/VeronicaMars the movie]], which reveals that Veronica transferred to Stanford after her first year at Hearst.
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* ''Series/VeronicaMars'': Used to justify CaliforniaUniversity and to continue EveryoneWentToSchoolTogether in Season 3. Veronica got into [[EliteSchoolMeansEliteBrain Stanford]] in Season 2, but her AlcoholicParent, Liane, AlcoholicParent Liane stole her college fund after Veronica put it up for rehab. As a result, she has to go to [[CaliforniaUniversity Hearst]] because of the lower costs and since she got an academic scholarship. This is [[HandWave hand-waved]] in [[Film/VeronicaMars the movie]], which reveals that Veronica transferred to Stanford after her first year at Hearst.
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* ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'': "[[Recap/AmphibiaS2E13ThePlantarsCheckIn The Plantars Check In]]" features Bella the Bellhop, who despite her four years of study at the prestigious Newtopia university, has been forced to get an exhausting but low paying job as a Bellhop due to the huge debts her studies brought. leaving her so broke that her lunch consists of bread with ice cubes as filling. This leads her to attempt to steal the "Royal Credit Card" that King Andrias gave to the Plantars, intending to use its unlimited funds to pay off the debt and finally start enjoying her life. She eventually sees the error of her ways, but Sprig manages to take advantage of the King's favour to force her boss to give her a raise, so that she can start paying off the debts.
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* ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'': "[[Recap/AmphibiaS2E13ThePlantarsCheckIn The Plantars Check In]]" features Bella the Bellhop, who despite her four years of study at the prestigious Newtopia university, University, has been forced to get an exhausting but low paying job as a Bellhop due to the huge debts her studies brought. leaving her so broke that her lunch consists of bread with ice cubes as filling. This leads her to attempt to steal the "Royal Credit Card" that King Andrias gave to the Plantars, intending to use its unlimited funds to pay off the debt and finally start enjoying her life. She eventually sees the error of her ways, but Sprig manages to take advantage of the King's favour to force her boss to give her a raise, raise so that she can start paying off the debts.
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->'''Creator/HasanMinhaj''': Student loans are crippling millions of people. Imagine starting a race, and then the guy with the starter pistol uses the gun to shoot you in the leg.
-->-- ''Series/PatriotActWithHasanMinhaj''
-->-- ''Series/PatriotActWithHasanMinhaj''
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-->-- '''Creator/HasanMinhaj''', ''Series/PatriotActWithHasanMinhaj''
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* ''Total Forgiveness'' is a show on Creator/{{Dropout}} where Grant O'Brien and Ally Beardsley do incresingly insane things in return for winning money paid to their student loans. A few examples of the things asked of them include wearing a shock collar that goes of everytime you speak for an entire day, sleeping with a snake in your bed, spending a day in a coffin, poorly singing the national anthem for an entire stadium, and pitching a pyramid scheme to your roommates.
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* ''Total Forgiveness'' is a show on Creator/{{Dropout}} where Grant O'Brien and Ally Beardsley do incresingly increasingly insane things in return for winning money paid to their student loans. A few examples of the things asked of them include wearing a shock collar that goes of everytime off every time you speak for an entire day, sleeping with a snake in your bed, spending a day in a coffin, poorly singing the national anthem for an entire stadium, and pitching a pyramid scheme to your roommates.
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* ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'': "[[Recap/AmphibiaS2E13ThePlantarsCheckIn The Plantars Check In]]" features Bella the Bellhop, who despite her four years of study at the prestigious Newtopia university, has been forced to get a exhausting but low paying job as a Bellhop due to the huge debts her studies brought. leaving her so broke that her lunch consists of bread with ice cubes as filling. This leads her to attempt to steal the "Royal Credit Card" that King Andrias gave to the Plantars, intending to use its unlimited funds to pay off the debt and finally start enjoying her life. She eventually see's the error of her ways, but Sprig manages to take advantage of the King's favour to force her boss to give her a raise, so that she can start paying off the debts.
to:
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'': "[[Recap/AmphibiaS2E13ThePlantarsCheckIn The Plantars Check In]]" features Bella the Bellhop, who despite her four years of study at the prestigious Newtopia university, has been forced to get a an exhausting but low paying job as a Bellhop due to the huge debts her studies brought. leaving her so broke that her lunch consists of bread with ice cubes as filling. This leads her to attempt to steal the "Royal Credit Card" that King Andrias gave to the Plantars, intending to use its unlimited funds to pay off the debt and finally start enjoying her life. She eventually see's sees the error of her ways, but Sprig manages to take advantage of the King's favour to force her boss to give her a raise, so that she can start paying off the debts.
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None
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* ''Film/KnivesOut'': [[UnclePennybags Harlan Thrombey]] generously funds his granddaughter Meg's college education (in what's implied to be a DegreeInUseless) by giving checks to her mother, Joni. Unfortunately, Joni has actually been embezzling those checks for herself and, upon hearing that Harlan plans to cut her (and by extension Meg) off, confesses that she's squandered all of the money and won't be able to pay for Meg's schooling any longer. The prospect of falling into massive debt with nothing to show for it but a degree that doesn't guarantee a job terrifies Meg, giving her a motive for Harlan's murder.
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* ''Film/KnivesOut'': [[UnclePennybags Harlan Thrombey]] generously funds his granddaughter Meg's college education (in what's implied to be a DegreeInUseless) ADegreeInUseless) by giving checks to her mother, Joni. Unfortunately, Joni has actually been embezzling those checks for herself and, upon hearing that Harlan plans to cut her (and by extension Meg) off, confesses that she's squandered all of the money and won't be able to pay for Meg's schooling any longer. The prospect of falling into massive debt with nothing to show for it but get a degree that doesn't guarantee a job terrifies Meg, giving her a motive for Harlan's murder.
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* ''Film/KnivesOut'': [[UnclePennybags Harlan Thrombey]] generously funds his granddaughter Meg's college education (in what's implied to be a DegreeInUseless) by giving checks to her mother, Joni. Unfortunately, Joni has actually been embezzling those checks for herself and, upon hearing that Harlan plans to cut her (and by extension Meg) off, confesses that she's squandered all of the money and won't be able to pay for Meg's schooling any longer. The prospect of falling into massive debt with nothing to show for it but a degree that doesn't guarantee a job terrifies Meg, giving her a motive for Harlan's murder.
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* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': Snake Jailbird turned to a life of crime to pay off his student loans. He went to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middlebury_College Middlebury College]], one of the most expensive colleges in the world.
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* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': According to "[[Recap/TheSimpsonsS7E2122ShortFilmsAboutSpringfield 22 Short Films About Springfield]]", Snake Jailbird turned to a life of crime to pay off his student loans. He went to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middlebury_College Middlebury College]], one of the most expensive colleges in the world.
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* Exaggerated in ''Literature/PoorMansFight'', where the debt owed to corporate overlords for studying is established by the Test. Tanner bombs it, which leads to him having to join the military to WorkOffTheDebt.
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* Exaggerated in ''Literature/PoorMansFight'', where the debt owed to corporate overlords for studying is established by the Test. Tanner bombs it, which leads to him having to join the military to WorkOffTheDebt. He ends up accidentally discovering evidence that the corporations have been rigging the tests for decades to deliberately test students on their weakest subjects in order to saddle them with extra-large debts, leading to the Debtor's War as his homeworld's government uses the evidence to declare student debts null and void and the corporations retaliate with military force.
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This is not an exclusively [[{{Eagleland}} American trope]], but it is a ''majority'' American trope because, in many other countries, college tuition is publicly funded, and due to the association between college education and UsefulNotes/TheAmericanDream. It's also one of TheNewestOnesInTheBook: until [[UsefulNotes/TheEighties the Reagan Administration]], while tuition wasn't free, it was subsidized to where you could easily cover the remainder with a part-time job at minimum wage (which was also much higher relative to the cost of living). Furthermore, interest rates have rocketed since [[TurnOfTheMillennium The Great Recession]] so that even being a ScholarshipStudent isn't enough to save you from debt. It can affect parents and family members as well as the students or former students themselves. Since British higher education was reformed in TheNineties and formerly free tuition supported by outright living grants are a thing of the past, the rocketing costs of tuition fees and even basic living expenses - now covered by long-term loans on the American model - are causing more and more problems and hardship to graduates.
to:
This is not an exclusively [[{{Eagleland}} American trope]], but it is a ''majority'' American trope because, in many other countries, college tuition is publicly funded, and due to the association between college education and UsefulNotes/TheAmericanDream. It's also one of TheNewestOnesInTheBook: until [[UsefulNotes/TheEighties the Reagan Administration]], while tuition wasn't free, it was subsidized to where you could easily cover the remainder with a part-time job at minimum wage (which was also much higher relative to the cost of living). Furthermore, interest rates have rocketed since [[TurnOfTheMillennium The Great Recession]] so that even being a ScholarshipStudent isn't enough to save you from debt. It can affect parents and family members as well as the students or former students themselves. Since British higher education was reformed in TheNineties and formerly free tuition supported by outright living grants are a thing of the past, the rocketing costs of tuition fees and even basic living expenses - now expenses--now covered by long-term loans on the American model - are model--are causing more and more problems and hardship to graduates.
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!! Examples
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[[/folder]]
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----
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* ''VideoGame/BorderlandsThePresequel'': The background for one of the six [[PlayerCharacter Vault Hunters]], Timothy Lawrence, is that he was a struggling drama student with loans to pay off. He unfortunately ended up making a contract with [[ProtagonistJourneyToVillain Jack]], surgically altered to act as his Doppelgänger for twenty years.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Visual Novels]]
* ''VisualNovel/BeingADIK'': A variant, since it's about paying for school. Maya's primary plot revolves around her desperately wanting to join Eta Omicron Tau after hearing a rumour that they pay for tuition. Episode 6 reveals the reason for her desperation: she is in dire financial straits because [[spoiler:her father Patrick exploited her trust in him to have her co-sign a loan with him on terms that let him control all the money, allowing her access to it only if she stops seeing her girlfriend Josy]].
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Visual Novels]]
* ''VisualNovel/BeingADIK'': A variant, since it's about paying for school. Maya's primary plot revolves around her desperately wanting to join Eta Omicron Tau after hearing a rumour that they pay for tuition. Episode 6 reveals the reason for her desperation: she is in dire financial straits because [[spoiler:her father Patrick exploited her trust in him to have her co-sign a loan with him on terms that let him control all the money, allowing her access to it only if she stops seeing her girlfriend Josy]].
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[[folder: Visual Novels]]
* ''VisualNovel/BeingADIK'': A variant, since it's about paying for school. Maya's primary plot revolves around her desperately wanting to join Eta Omicron Tau after hearing a rumour that they pay for tuition. Episode 6 reveals the reason for her desperation: she is in dire financial straits because [[spoiler:her father Patrick exploited her trust in him to have her co-sign a loan with him on terms that let him control all the money, allowing her access to it only if she stops seeing her girlfriend Josy]].
[[/folder]]
* ''VisualNovel/BeingADIK'': A variant, since it's about paying for school. Maya's primary plot revolves around her desperately wanting to join Eta Omicron Tau after hearing a rumour that they pay for tuition. Episode 6 reveals the reason for her desperation: she is in dire financial straits because [[spoiler:her father Patrick exploited her trust in him to have her co-sign a loan with him on terms that let him control all the money, allowing her access to it only if she stops seeing her girlfriend Josy]].
[[/folder]]
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Expanded description with a note on the British system.
Changed line(s) 10,11 (click to see context) from:
This is not an exclusively [[{{Eagleland}} American trope]], but it is a ''majority'' American trope because, in many other countries, college tuition is publicly funded, and due to the association between college education and UsefulNotes/TheAmericanDream. It's also one of TheNewestOnesInTheBook: until [[UsefulNotes/TheEighties the Reagan Administration]], while tuition wasn't free, it was subsidized to where you could easily cover the remainder with a part-time job at minimum wage (which was also much higher relative to the cost of living). Furthermore, interest rates have rocketed since [[TurnOfTheMillennium The Great Recession]] so that even being a ScholarshipStudent isn't enough to save you from debt. It can affect parents and family members as well as the students or former students themselves.
to:
This is not an exclusively [[{{Eagleland}} American trope]], but it is a ''majority'' American trope because, in many other countries, college tuition is publicly funded, and due to the association between college education and UsefulNotes/TheAmericanDream. It's also one of TheNewestOnesInTheBook: until [[UsefulNotes/TheEighties the Reagan Administration]], while tuition wasn't free, it was subsidized to where you could easily cover the remainder with a part-time job at minimum wage (which was also much higher relative to the cost of living). Furthermore, interest rates have rocketed since [[TurnOfTheMillennium The Great Recession]] so that even being a ScholarshipStudent isn't enough to save you from debt. It can affect parents and family members as well as the students or former students themselves. Since British higher education was reformed in TheNineties and formerly free tuition supported by outright living grants are a thing of the past, the rocketing costs of tuition fees and even basic living expenses - now covered by long-term loans on the American model - are causing more and more problems and hardship to graduates.
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* In ''Film/HalfMoonStreet'', Creator/SigourneyWeaver plays a graduate student at a university in London who is trapped by debt and poverty and has to moonlight as a high-class escort girl to make ends meet and to address her own financial woes. This leads to life-threatening problems for her when she gets too deeply involved with a mysterious client.
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* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': Snake Jailbird turned to a life of crime to pay off his student loans. He went to [[en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middlebury_College Middlebury College]], one of the most expensive colleges in the world.
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* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': Snake Jailbird turned to a life of crime to pay off his student loans. He went to [[en.[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middlebury_College Middlebury College]], one of the most expensive colleges in the world.
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* ''Series/NorthernExposure'': The protagonist Fleischer is forced to work in Alaska for four years due to his student debt to the state, who paid his way through med school. This results in him getting assigned to Cicely, which he initially despises, and the series is born.
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* ''Series/NorthernExposure'': The protagonist Fleischer is forced to work in Joel Fleischman made a deal with the state of Alaska that he would work there for four years due to his student debt to the state, who paid his way through in exchange for med school. This results in him getting school tuition. While he had expected to be assigned to a modern hospital in a city like Juneau, he instead ends up as the sole family practitioner in the remote town of Cicely, which where he initially despises, and the series is born. forced to stay or be saddled with a mountain of debt.
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* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': Snake Jailbird turned to a life of crime to pay off his student loans. He went to [[en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middlebury_College Middlebury College]], one of the most expensive colleges in the world.
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-->''Series/PatriotActWithHasanMinhaj''
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Created from YKTTW
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->'''Creator/HasanMinhaj''': Student loans are crippling millions of people. Imagine starting a race, and then the guy with the starter pistol uses the gun to shoot you in the leg.
-->''Series/PatriotActWithHasanMinhaj''
Being a college student is expensive. That's why so many students end up [[StarvingStudent starving.]] Unfortunately, the problems don't end with graduation. In fact, for many people, the problems ''begin'' there.
Suddenly, a person can be landed with a lot of debt from both private and government sources with only ADegreeInUseless to show for it. And that's if they even got that far; they may be a TragicDropout. How they respond will depend on the plot, but it's common for these people to become a JustifiedCriminal. That's how they end up being OnlyInItForTheMoney.
This is a common way to garner sympathy for your protagonist. As TheOneWhoMadeItOut suggests, college is viewed as one way for [[RagsToRiches an impoverished person to ascend social ranks]], but it's not as simple as that. Debt particularly affects low-income people, both for the obvious reasons and inexperience with financial systems. As a result, student debt is often used as a shorthand for someone who is ambitious and talented, but hampered by social inequality who has to resort to increasingly extreme measures. They may become a BurgerFool, an AlmightyJanitor, get landed with a SoulCrushingDeskJob or a SoulSuckingRetailJob, or end up in circumstances to say IWasYoungAndNeededTheMoney.
This is not an exclusively [[{{Eagleland}} American trope]], but it is a ''majority'' American trope because, in many other countries, college tuition is publicly funded, and due to the association between college education and UsefulNotes/TheAmericanDream. It's also one of TheNewestOnesInTheBook: until [[UsefulNotes/TheEighties the Reagan Administration]], while tuition wasn't free, it was subsidized to where you could easily cover the remainder with a part-time job at minimum wage (which was also much higher relative to the cost of living). Furthermore, interest rates have rocketed since [[TurnOfTheMillennium The Great Recession]] so that even being a ScholarshipStudent isn't enough to save you from debt. It can affect parents and family members as well as the students or former students themselves.
Compare HealthcareMotivation, which is another trope that will commonly involve people going above and beyond for a necessity.
Though this is TruthInTelevision for a lot of people, depending on the story, there may be an element of ArtisticLicenseEducation in the treatment of financial aid.
!! Examples
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder: Anime and Manga]]
* Exaggerated in ''Manga/{{Kakegurui}}'', where the debt comes from having an entire school based on gambling. Less proficient students get suckered into enormous amounts of debt. It's revealed that [[spoiler:student gamblers can end up owing their entire lives to the AbsurdlyPowerfulStudentCouncil, who will determine every move they make in adulthood.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Film - Live-Action]]
* ''Film/EmilyTheCriminal'': Emily has a mountain of student debt from going to art school and dropping out after she got in legal trouble for beating up her abusive boyfriend. It gets her suckered into L.A.'s criminal underworld as she becomes more embittered from the fact that she can never even pay off her interest and so becomes more vicious as she accepts that LifeIsntFair.
* ''Film/HeNeverDied'': Jeremy kicks off the plot by borrowing money from a loan shark to pay off his student loans. The loan shark then comes to find him after he falls behind on payments, but they find Jack instead and try to intimidate him into telling them.
* ''Film/TheLastStarfighter'': A minor subplot early in the film has Alex trying to take out a loan to go away to college which, even in TheEighties, is prohibitively expensive for [[TrashyTrailerHome a trailer park kid]] whose [[StrugglingSingleMother single mom is a waitress]]. Shortly after he gets the top score on the ''Last Starfighter'' video game cabinet, his mom comes home with a rejection letter.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Literature]]
* ''Literature/LegallyBrunette'': Mina, a lawyer just starting out, takes some cases because they have tons of cash and she has student debt, such as in Chapter [[spoiler:69]]:
--> she was about to free herself from the shackles of student debt
* ''Literature/TheCreepingCharlies'': The Charlies are trapped in the literally poisonous town of Charogne Falls because Collette and Pierre's parents can't move due to their student debt unless they find a relative to live with.
* ''Literature/TheHoleWereIn'':
** The Pomroys were in a stable, middle-class position until patriarch Roger took a serious pay cut to do his [=PhD=]. This one decision ends up spiraling them into debt, [[spoiler:causing George to illegally take out loans in her son Vincent's name.]]
** Due to the above, the only way Patsy can afford to go to college is by enlisting on the GI bill. Then UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror begins, and she ends up being sent to Iraq. By the time she comes back, she's pregnant, still struggling to get college financed (and [[spoiler:never really manages it]]), ''and'' [[ShellShockedVeteran living with severe PTSD.]]
* ''Literature/TheNameOfTheWind'': The protagonist Kvothe starts out as a penniless urchin and finds that [[WizardingSchool the University]] doesn't issue loans, forcing him to get tuition money from a black-market LoanShark. Her real goal is to [[YouOweMe force him to sneak her into the University archives]], but he's able to repay her in cash with some ingenuity and plenty of TripleShifter work.
* Exaggerated in ''Literature/PoorMansFight'', where the debt owed to corporate overlords for studying is established by the Test. Tanner bombs it, which leads to him having to join the military to WorkOffTheDebt.
* ''Literature/{{Room}}'': A minor example. Ma says that she does the interview to get money for "Jack's college fund" (he's five). The interview goes badly, and after the interviewer suggests that Ma should've given Jack up for adoption, she [[spoiler:attempts suicide. This results in Ma and Jack being separated for the last act.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Live-Action TV]]
* ''Series/{{Evil}}'': Kristen only joins David's team because she needs to pay off her student loans while raising her daughters. This leads to a ''lot'' of heartbreak for her.
* In ''Series/FargoSeasonFive'', Indira Olmstead's money problems began with her student loans. At first, she was able to pay her own way through college, but then her college tuition went up and she was forced to take out loans to keep up. By the time she graduated, she had a small mountain of debt, which only grew worse when she married her idiotic husband Lars and discovered that he had his own debts to pay off.
* Invoked in ''Series/{{Honeys}}''. One of the ways that Reika shows herself to be morally better than her employers is that she disagrees with advertising debt to students, who are vulnerable as they can't borrow from anywhere else.
* ''Series/LastManStanding2011'': Ryan's student debt is one of his defining characteristics. He ran out on Kristin and their young son only to earn [[ADegreeInUseless a BA in history]] and can only get a job as a beer truck driver. He harbors a lot of resentment for what he sees as the repression of the working man, but it's his own idleness that put him in this position.
* ''Series/NorthernExposure'': The protagonist Fleischer is forced to work in Alaska for four years due to his student debt to the state, who paid his way through med school. This results in him getting assigned to Cicely, which he initially despises, and the series is born.
* ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'': The episode "My Fruit Cups" deals with the debt doctors get into after medical school. Turk and JD are forced to steal supplies and pick up extra shifts to make ends meet. The episode's conflict begins when JD learns that Turk cheated him out of money for a shift they worked. Meanwhile, Elliot's father pays her debt off on the condition she become an OBGYN. When she refuses, he cuts her off.
* Played with in ''Series/SheHulkAttorneyAtLaw''. Bruce encourages Jen to use her Hulk powers more often after she realizes she has them. She resists, saying she wants to go back to law and have a regular job so she can pay off her "mountain of student loans." This allows the plot to progress as it was as she keeps being a lawyer, but cuts off a potential plot line of Jen being She-Hulk more often.
* ''Series/VeronicaMars'': Used to justify CaliforniaUniversity and to continue EveryoneWentToSchoolTogether in Season 3. Veronica got into [[EliteSchoolMeansEliteBrain Stanford]] in Season 2, but her AlcoholicParent, Liane, stole her college fund after Veronica put it up for rehab. As a result, she has to go to [[CaliforniaUniversity Hearst]] because of the lower costs and since she got an academic scholarship. This is [[HandWave hand-waved]] in [[Film/VeronicaMars the movie]], which reveals that Veronica transferred to Stanford after her first year at Hearst.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasyRoleplay'': The journeyman wizard Janna Colburg is so desperate to pay off her debts to the [[WizardingSchool College of Magic]] that she's plotting to [[TheCaper burgle a silver warehouse]] -- never mind her total lack of non-academic life experience.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''VideoGame/SaintsRow2022'': In contrast to the other games in the series, the YoungerAndHipper Gen Z cast turns to crime in order to pay off their student loans, and frequently worry about making payments in time.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Visual Novels]]
* ''VisualNovel/BeingADIK'': A variant, since it's about paying for school. Maya's primary plot revolves around her desperately wanting to join Eta Omicron Tau after hearing a rumour that they pay for tuition. Episode 6 reveals the reason for her desperation: she is in dire financial straits because [[spoiler:her father Patrick exploited her trust in him to have her co-sign a loan with him on terms that let him control all the money, allowing her access to it only if she stops seeing her girlfriend Josy]].
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Webcomics]]
* ''Webcomic/TheDragonDoctors'': Tanica, a Trsanti assassin whom Sarin accidentally turned into a tree, revealed that she resorted to joining the Trsanti to pay off her student loans.
* ''Webcomic/{{Zortic}}'': The original version [[http://entireprizeenterprises.com/classiczortic/comic/origins-1/ started with]] Zortic meeting a Jabba the Hutt expy about his outstanding debts, the punchline revealing they're student loans. Leading him to enter the game show where he wins the starship ''Entire Prize.''
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Web Video]]
* Creator/LindsayEllis has spoken about her problems while studying at, and after graduating from, USC, where student debt caused a rift in her working relationship with Website/ChannelAwesome.
-->Thing is, around this time, I made another huge mistake (haha joke [haha... sort of a joke]) when I got accepted to USC. I say "huge mistake" because being young and dumb, I didn't realize that 7% interest rate on student loans was... a lot. And a MFA at the world's top film school (since usurped but it was rated #1 at the time!) takes super huge priority over internet videos, even if they paid okay.
* ''Total Forgiveness'' is a show on Creator/{{Dropout}} where Grant O'Brien and Ally Beardsley do incresingly insane things in return for winning money paid to their student loans. A few examples of the things asked of them include wearing a shock collar that goes of everytime you speak for an entire day, sleeping with a snake in your bed, spending a day in a coffin, poorly singing the national anthem for an entire stadium, and pitching a pyramid scheme to your roommates.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'': "[[Recap/AmphibiaS2E13ThePlantarsCheckIn The Plantars Check In]]" features Bella the Bellhop, who despite her four years of study at the prestigious Newtopia university, has been forced to get a exhausting but low paying job as a Bellhop due to the huge debts her studies brought. leaving her so broke that her lunch consists of bread with ice cubes as filling. This leads her to attempt to steal the "Royal Credit Card" that King Andrias gave to the Plantars, intending to use its unlimited funds to pay off the debt and finally start enjoying her life. She eventually see's the error of her ways, but Sprig manages to take advantage of the King's favour to force her boss to give her a raise, so that she can start paying off the debts.
[[/folder]]
-->''Series/PatriotActWithHasanMinhaj''
Being a college student is expensive. That's why so many students end up [[StarvingStudent starving.]] Unfortunately, the problems don't end with graduation. In fact, for many people, the problems ''begin'' there.
Suddenly, a person can be landed with a lot of debt from both private and government sources with only ADegreeInUseless to show for it. And that's if they even got that far; they may be a TragicDropout. How they respond will depend on the plot, but it's common for these people to become a JustifiedCriminal. That's how they end up being OnlyInItForTheMoney.
This is a common way to garner sympathy for your protagonist. As TheOneWhoMadeItOut suggests, college is viewed as one way for [[RagsToRiches an impoverished person to ascend social ranks]], but it's not as simple as that. Debt particularly affects low-income people, both for the obvious reasons and inexperience with financial systems. As a result, student debt is often used as a shorthand for someone who is ambitious and talented, but hampered by social inequality who has to resort to increasingly extreme measures. They may become a BurgerFool, an AlmightyJanitor, get landed with a SoulCrushingDeskJob or a SoulSuckingRetailJob, or end up in circumstances to say IWasYoungAndNeededTheMoney.
This is not an exclusively [[{{Eagleland}} American trope]], but it is a ''majority'' American trope because, in many other countries, college tuition is publicly funded, and due to the association between college education and UsefulNotes/TheAmericanDream. It's also one of TheNewestOnesInTheBook: until [[UsefulNotes/TheEighties the Reagan Administration]], while tuition wasn't free, it was subsidized to where you could easily cover the remainder with a part-time job at minimum wage (which was also much higher relative to the cost of living). Furthermore, interest rates have rocketed since [[TurnOfTheMillennium The Great Recession]] so that even being a ScholarshipStudent isn't enough to save you from debt. It can affect parents and family members as well as the students or former students themselves.
Compare HealthcareMotivation, which is another trope that will commonly involve people going above and beyond for a necessity.
Though this is TruthInTelevision for a lot of people, depending on the story, there may be an element of ArtisticLicenseEducation in the treatment of financial aid.
!! Examples
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder: Anime and Manga]]
* Exaggerated in ''Manga/{{Kakegurui}}'', where the debt comes from having an entire school based on gambling. Less proficient students get suckered into enormous amounts of debt. It's revealed that [[spoiler:student gamblers can end up owing their entire lives to the AbsurdlyPowerfulStudentCouncil, who will determine every move they make in adulthood.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Film - Live-Action]]
* ''Film/EmilyTheCriminal'': Emily has a mountain of student debt from going to art school and dropping out after she got in legal trouble for beating up her abusive boyfriend. It gets her suckered into L.A.'s criminal underworld as she becomes more embittered from the fact that she can never even pay off her interest and so becomes more vicious as she accepts that LifeIsntFair.
* ''Film/HeNeverDied'': Jeremy kicks off the plot by borrowing money from a loan shark to pay off his student loans. The loan shark then comes to find him after he falls behind on payments, but they find Jack instead and try to intimidate him into telling them.
* ''Film/TheLastStarfighter'': A minor subplot early in the film has Alex trying to take out a loan to go away to college which, even in TheEighties, is prohibitively expensive for [[TrashyTrailerHome a trailer park kid]] whose [[StrugglingSingleMother single mom is a waitress]]. Shortly after he gets the top score on the ''Last Starfighter'' video game cabinet, his mom comes home with a rejection letter.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Literature]]
* ''Literature/LegallyBrunette'': Mina, a lawyer just starting out, takes some cases because they have tons of cash and she has student debt, such as in Chapter [[spoiler:69]]:
--> she was about to free herself from the shackles of student debt
* ''Literature/TheCreepingCharlies'': The Charlies are trapped in the literally poisonous town of Charogne Falls because Collette and Pierre's parents can't move due to their student debt unless they find a relative to live with.
* ''Literature/TheHoleWereIn'':
** The Pomroys were in a stable, middle-class position until patriarch Roger took a serious pay cut to do his [=PhD=]. This one decision ends up spiraling them into debt, [[spoiler:causing George to illegally take out loans in her son Vincent's name.]]
** Due to the above, the only way Patsy can afford to go to college is by enlisting on the GI bill. Then UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror begins, and she ends up being sent to Iraq. By the time she comes back, she's pregnant, still struggling to get college financed (and [[spoiler:never really manages it]]), ''and'' [[ShellShockedVeteran living with severe PTSD.]]
* ''Literature/TheNameOfTheWind'': The protagonist Kvothe starts out as a penniless urchin and finds that [[WizardingSchool the University]] doesn't issue loans, forcing him to get tuition money from a black-market LoanShark. Her real goal is to [[YouOweMe force him to sneak her into the University archives]], but he's able to repay her in cash with some ingenuity and plenty of TripleShifter work.
* Exaggerated in ''Literature/PoorMansFight'', where the debt owed to corporate overlords for studying is established by the Test. Tanner bombs it, which leads to him having to join the military to WorkOffTheDebt.
* ''Literature/{{Room}}'': A minor example. Ma says that she does the interview to get money for "Jack's college fund" (he's five). The interview goes badly, and after the interviewer suggests that Ma should've given Jack up for adoption, she [[spoiler:attempts suicide. This results in Ma and Jack being separated for the last act.]]
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Live-Action TV]]
* ''Series/{{Evil}}'': Kristen only joins David's team because she needs to pay off her student loans while raising her daughters. This leads to a ''lot'' of heartbreak for her.
* In ''Series/FargoSeasonFive'', Indira Olmstead's money problems began with her student loans. At first, she was able to pay her own way through college, but then her college tuition went up and she was forced to take out loans to keep up. By the time she graduated, she had a small mountain of debt, which only grew worse when she married her idiotic husband Lars and discovered that he had his own debts to pay off.
* Invoked in ''Series/{{Honeys}}''. One of the ways that Reika shows herself to be morally better than her employers is that she disagrees with advertising debt to students, who are vulnerable as they can't borrow from anywhere else.
* ''Series/LastManStanding2011'': Ryan's student debt is one of his defining characteristics. He ran out on Kristin and their young son only to earn [[ADegreeInUseless a BA in history]] and can only get a job as a beer truck driver. He harbors a lot of resentment for what he sees as the repression of the working man, but it's his own idleness that put him in this position.
* ''Series/NorthernExposure'': The protagonist Fleischer is forced to work in Alaska for four years due to his student debt to the state, who paid his way through med school. This results in him getting assigned to Cicely, which he initially despises, and the series is born.
* ''Series/{{Scrubs}}'': The episode "My Fruit Cups" deals with the debt doctors get into after medical school. Turk and JD are forced to steal supplies and pick up extra shifts to make ends meet. The episode's conflict begins when JD learns that Turk cheated him out of money for a shift they worked. Meanwhile, Elliot's father pays her debt off on the condition she become an OBGYN. When she refuses, he cuts her off.
* Played with in ''Series/SheHulkAttorneyAtLaw''. Bruce encourages Jen to use her Hulk powers more often after she realizes she has them. She resists, saying she wants to go back to law and have a regular job so she can pay off her "mountain of student loans." This allows the plot to progress as it was as she keeps being a lawyer, but cuts off a potential plot line of Jen being She-Hulk more often.
* ''Series/VeronicaMars'': Used to justify CaliforniaUniversity and to continue EveryoneWentToSchoolTogether in Season 3. Veronica got into [[EliteSchoolMeansEliteBrain Stanford]] in Season 2, but her AlcoholicParent, Liane, stole her college fund after Veronica put it up for rehab. As a result, she has to go to [[CaliforniaUniversity Hearst]] because of the lower costs and since she got an academic scholarship. This is [[HandWave hand-waved]] in [[Film/VeronicaMars the movie]], which reveals that Veronica transferred to Stanford after her first year at Hearst.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
* ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasyRoleplay'': The journeyman wizard Janna Colburg is so desperate to pay off her debts to the [[WizardingSchool College of Magic]] that she's plotting to [[TheCaper burgle a silver warehouse]] -- never mind her total lack of non-academic life experience.
[[/folder]]
[[folder:Video Games]]
* ''VideoGame/SaintsRow2022'': In contrast to the other games in the series, the YoungerAndHipper Gen Z cast turns to crime in order to pay off their student loans, and frequently worry about making payments in time.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Visual Novels]]
* ''VisualNovel/BeingADIK'': A variant, since it's about paying for school. Maya's primary plot revolves around her desperately wanting to join Eta Omicron Tau after hearing a rumour that they pay for tuition. Episode 6 reveals the reason for her desperation: she is in dire financial straits because [[spoiler:her father Patrick exploited her trust in him to have her co-sign a loan with him on terms that let him control all the money, allowing her access to it only if she stops seeing her girlfriend Josy]].
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Webcomics]]
* ''Webcomic/TheDragonDoctors'': Tanica, a Trsanti assassin whom Sarin accidentally turned into a tree, revealed that she resorted to joining the Trsanti to pay off her student loans.
* ''Webcomic/{{Zortic}}'': The original version [[http://entireprizeenterprises.com/classiczortic/comic/origins-1/ started with]] Zortic meeting a Jabba the Hutt expy about his outstanding debts, the punchline revealing they're student loans. Leading him to enter the game show where he wins the starship ''Entire Prize.''
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Web Video]]
* Creator/LindsayEllis has spoken about her problems while studying at, and after graduating from, USC, where student debt caused a rift in her working relationship with Website/ChannelAwesome.
-->Thing is, around this time, I made another huge mistake (haha joke [haha... sort of a joke]) when I got accepted to USC. I say "huge mistake" because being young and dumb, I didn't realize that 7% interest rate on student loans was... a lot. And a MFA at the world's top film school (since usurped but it was rated #1 at the time!) takes super huge priority over internet videos, even if they paid okay.
* ''Total Forgiveness'' is a show on Creator/{{Dropout}} where Grant O'Brien and Ally Beardsley do incresingly insane things in return for winning money paid to their student loans. A few examples of the things asked of them include wearing a shock collar that goes of everytime you speak for an entire day, sleeping with a snake in your bed, spending a day in a coffin, poorly singing the national anthem for an entire stadium, and pitching a pyramid scheme to your roommates.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Amphibia}}'': "[[Recap/AmphibiaS2E13ThePlantarsCheckIn The Plantars Check In]]" features Bella the Bellhop, who despite her four years of study at the prestigious Newtopia university, has been forced to get a exhausting but low paying job as a Bellhop due to the huge debts her studies brought. leaving her so broke that her lunch consists of bread with ice cubes as filling. This leads her to attempt to steal the "Royal Credit Card" that King Andrias gave to the Plantars, intending to use its unlimited funds to pay off the debt and finally start enjoying her life. She eventually see's the error of her ways, but Sprig manages to take advantage of the King's favour to force her boss to give her a raise, so that she can start paying off the debts.
[[/folder]]
