Book excerpt: This volume provides a comprehensive and evenhanded overview of the escalating college affordability crisis in the United States. It explains how higher education became so expensive and explores the implications of high college loan debt for students and American society. The 21st Century Turning Point series is a one-stop resource for understanding the people and events changing America today. Each volume provides readers with a clear, authoritative, and unbiased understanding of a single issue or event that is driving national debate about our country's leaders, institutions, values, and priorities. This particular volume is devoted to the issue of the rising cost of higher education in the United States. The expense of pursuing a college degree has become so high for so many students, in fact, that the country is experiencing what many educators, economists, parents, and students describe as a college affordability crisis. This work provides an accessible, accurate account of the factors driving this trend, including dramatic reductions in higher education spending by states; for-profit colleges; predatory, unscrupulous, and lightly regulated student loan service companies; and spiraling spending by colleges and universities competing to attract students.