The student debt crisis has reached a boiling point. And instead of despairing, students across the country have spent months organizing what is expected to be an historic nationwide walkout making three demands: Tuition-free public colleges and universities, a cancellation of student debt, and a $15 an hour minimum wage for all campus workers. The event, happening all day Thursday, has been dubbed the Million Student March.

As I wrote earlier this year, student debt has become a price that poor young people pay for not being wealthy. In order to be competitive in today’s job market, young people have no choice but to earn a college degree. But earning that degree requires either being independently wealthy or going into debt – $30,000 for the average student, to be precise. Student debt carries a much higher interest rate than other forms of debt, and unlike those other forms of debt, it’s impossible to be discharged through bankruptcy.

But because jobs are so scarce, not all of the estimated 40 million Americans who carry an accumulated $1.3 trillion in debt will be able to find stable employment, and one in seven of those borrowers will default on those loans within the first three years of required payments. As most of us know, and many through personal experience, defaulting on any kind of debt harms your credit rating, which in turn harms your ability to do any number of things that require a credit check, like renting an apartment, buying a car or getting a job.

Indebted students are in a no-win situation: to have a good resume that leads to an interview for a decent job, applicants need a college degree. Getting a degree requires going into debt. Going into debt harms your ability to get a job. And the circle goes round and round.

Keely Mullen, an organizer with the Million Student March, owes $150,000 in debt for her undergraduate degree from Northeastern University in Boston. Mullen said a mass movement is needed to fight what she calls “the corporatization of higher education.”

“We’re ready to fight back,” Mullen said in an interview with US Uncut. “We’re waking up with empty hands and empty pockets and realizing that we shouldn’t be shackled to debt before we even enter the adult world.”

“It feels more and more like education is just not a priority of our government or our system,” Mullen continued.

According to StudentMarch.org, the official website of Thursday’s march, there are 106 marches scheduled in 35 states across the country. Thirteen of those actions are on campuses across California, from San Diego to Humboldt County. Nine campuses in Michigan are participating, and nine campuses in New York are walking out. Even two campuses in Hawaii are taking part in today’s actions.

As of the time of this writing, the marches happening today at UC Berkeley and UC Davis have 545 and 717 confirmed attendees, respectively, according to the Facebook event page for each march. At the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, 517 participants are expected, and Temple University in Philadelphia is expected to bring out 284 marchers.

The national call for tuition-free college has become a hot campaign issue within the Democratic presidential primary. While Hillary Clinton has proposed a path to debt-free college, her idea still doesn’t go as far as Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’ proposal for tuition-free undergraduate education at all public universities. March organizer Elan Axelbank doesn’t trust Clinton’s plan.

“Wells Fargo is the second largest private student loan lender in the country, and is also one of the biggest contributors to Hillary Clinton’s super PAC,” Axelbank told US Uncut. “How can corporate politicians like her take on the corporations abusing us when they’re the very ones funding her election?”

A 2014 article from The Atlantic claims that providing all of America’s college students with tuition-free undergraduate education would cost just $62.6 billion, which is currently less than the U.S. government currently spends on all student aid programs – from federal student loans, Pell grants, federal work study positions, and other initiatives. In fact, the U.S. Department of Education is expected to make $127 billion in profit from federal student loans in the next decade. Ninety percent of all student loans actually come from the federal government.

Bernie Sanders’s Free College for All Act estimates the annual cost of free college be approximately $70 billion. His bill would provide $47 billion per year, or two-thirds of the cost, to help states offset tuition expenses, while the remaining third would come from states themselves. To qualify for the federal funds, states would have to first promise to invest tax dollars into need-based financial aid programs and academic instruction, while reducing their dependence on low-paid adjunct professors. Clinton’s plan would spend about $35 billion per year to help students attend college, paid for by reducing deductions for upper-income tax filers. However, it would still require out-of-pocket contributions from students.

“This still means families will have to empty their pockets just so their kids can get an education,” Axelbank said.

Organizations endorsing today’s march include the United States Student Association, College Students for Bernie, Socialist Alternative, the Student Labor Action Project, the Energy Action Coalition and National People’s Action, among others.

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