$23, 790.8

Footnote 3

According to Meriam-Webster’s online resource, “Crony Capitalism” was first uttered in 1981. Roughly ten years earlier Congress had instituted a new economic public/private venture to oversee the injection of taxpayer money to banks to create an avenue for more people to access student loans for college. By 1981 Sallie Mae was bringing in record profits for its shareholders.

In 1981 my father was a Master’s student in Electrical Engineering at Kansas State University. He had met my mother in the office where she was a secretary for the department. My parents were married in 1981. I was born that same year. My first bedroom was shared with Dad’s office, my crib in the same room as piles of books and a studious energy. Despite digging into the online record, I am not sure what the cost of school was for my father at the time, suffice to say it was less expensive than today. 

I have existed in an economic structure rife with collaboration between public investment for private gain for my entire life. Reaganomics have impacted all of us currently existing in the current manifestation of global capitalism, though for those of us born in the early 80s our lives have been shaped by it to the most detrimental financial losses and gaps between our generation and the ones that came before. 

Crony capitalism’s interweaving with student loan issuers never had students’ best interests in mind. We pretend to not know about the financial gains being negotiated by those closest to the halls of legislative, but the impacts are felt whether we know the origins or not. 

Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, s.v. “crony capitalism,” accessed February 7, 2024, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/crony%20capitalism.