Red Emma’s

Lend and Rule reveals the “shadow governance” of debt and credit in the United States higher education system. With sharp and hard-hitting insight, the Coalition Against Campus Debt exposes how institutional debt is a primary driver of university austerity, miseducation, and the deepening of societal inequality.

Addressing how our lives are entangled in a debt economy, they develop the analysis necessary to transform higher education in today’s neoliberal racial capitalist political economy.

Part theoretical analysis, part toolbox for organizers in higher education, Lend and Rule is an invaluable resource for anyone engaged in debt abolition struggles or looking to acquire a critical and transformative vision of higher education today.

María del Mar Rosa-Rodríguez is an associate professor of Hispanic Studies at the University of Puerto Rico at Cayey, and the president of the faculty union of the UPR, Asociación Puertorriqueña de Profesores Universitarios (APPU). She is also the cofounder of the Junte de Mujeres Sindicalistas, bringing together feminism and syndicalism.

Joanna Gonsalves is a psychology professor at Salem State University and president of the Massachusetts State College Association faculty union.

Rich Levy is a professor of Political Science emeritus at Salem State University and a member of Educators for a Democratic Union. He and Joanna Gonsalves are coordinators of the Massachusetts Campus Debt Reveal and the Massachusetts Anti-Privatization Project, both funded by the Massachusetts Teachers Association.

Jason Thomas Wozniak is an associate professor in the Educational Foundations and Policy Studies Department, Coordinator of the Transformative Education and Social Change Program, and Co-Director of The Latin American Philosophy of Education Society (LAPES) at West Chester University. He is also a long-term organizer with Debt Collective.

Sofya Aptekar is an associate professor of urban studies at the City University of New York School of Labor and Urban Studies. She is the author of Green Card Soldier (MIT, 2023) and a delegate of the Professional Staff Congress.

Eleni Schirmer is a writer living in Montréal. She organizes with the Debt Collective.