For many in the United States, debt is the price of upward mobility. An increasing number of jobs require some college, and wages are higher for people with college degrees. As states cut funding for higher education, colleges have passed the costs on to students. Nationally, 44.2 million people -- one sixth of the population -- hold a total of $1.3 trillion in student loan debt. In Ohio, over 687,000 people hold $19 billion in outstanding student debt, which does not even include people with only private loans. People with student debt are struggling to pay back their loans. In Ohio, average student debt for the class of 2014 was $29,353. Of Ohioans with student debt in 2014, an estimated 42.2 percent were considered "distressed," meaning they can't fully repay their loans due to financial difficulties or problematic loan terms. In 2014, nearly 27 percent of borrowers were in serious delinquency, late on payments, and 15.7 percent were in default, when borrowers are delinquent for longer than 270 days for federal loans. This report describes the breadth and depth of the student debt trap in Ohio and tell a few of the stories of the people caught in it. [This work was made possible in part by the Ohio Student Association.]