A profile of the anthropologist.

Dave Ramsey, corporate media, and how we talk about financial distress.

“The dirty secret of American higher education is that student-loan interest rates are almost irrelevant. It’s not the cost of the loan that’s the problem, it’s the principal—the appallingly high tuition costs that have been soaring at two to three times the rate of inflation, an irrational upward trajectory eerily reminiscent of skyrocketing housing prices in the years before 2008.”

An American family’s struggle for student loan redemption.

How the state’s “restitution program” forces poor people to work off small debts.

Jubilee Baptist is a quasi-socialist, anti-racist, LGBTQ-affirming church conducting a bold experiment: focusing on debt, work, and freedom from oppression instead of fear and moralism.

Riots in Athens, the shadowy Vatopaidi monastery, and a quarter million dollars in debt for every citizen. Welcome to Greece.

A social and financial divide is forming—between those who have student debt, and those who do not—that will have ramifications for decades to come.

In many parts of America, like Corinth, Miss., judges are locking up defendants who can’t pay—sometimes for months at a time.

Life and debt as a young writer in New York.

Andrew Therrien wanted payback. He got it—and uncovered a conspiracy.

How did a tenure-track professor wind up selling his plasma? A story about debt.

Racial discrimination and the collection of small consumer debts.

Deep in debt, a man makes a large racetrack wager and recalls his history of gambling.

"I lean in to the betting window and tell her I want a grand on my horse. She looks shocked at first. She knows it’s a bet I shouldn’t be making, a bet I can’t afford, but she doesn’t know I’m running out of options. If I can’t come up with some serious cash soon, my number’s up. She types in some information but it seems to take her longer than usual."

In Harpersville, Alabama, a traffic violation can lead to months in jail and a never-ending stint in a work-release program – what some refer to as a modern-day debtors’ prison.

On working in a war zone to pay the bills.