Welcome to Axis Proerata, where we take just 10 minutes to get you smarter on the collision of tech, business, and politics.

Sponsored by TSX Broadway.

I'm Dan Premack.

On today's show, President Trump's latest financial folly and the official end of a great American retailer.

But first, the fight to fix student debt.

So as you're no doubt aware, America is

in more than a bit of a student loan crisis. They owe around $1.5 trillion to their alma

moders, which is well more than they owe on things like credit cards or for auto loans. It has

become a rallying cry for both sides of the political aisle and is expected to be a

prominent topic in the 2020 presidential primaries, particularly from Bernie Sanders siders who want

America's public universities to become free of charge. But there is another possible solution

that's already being tested out, and it's called income share agreements.

So if you haven't heard of these things, here's how they work.

Students in this case don't pay any tuition up front.

Instead, they get educated and, in exchange, agree to pay a percentage of future earnings back to the school.

It's something Purdue University in Indiana's already been trying out,

and it's also the model for a vocational education startup called the Lambda School,

which just today announced $30 million in new venture capital funding. Now, Lambda is based in

Silicon Valley, but most of its students aren't there. A lot of them are in the middle of the

country, particularly in rural areas. And they learn online, with Lambda so far focusing

on teaching coding skills, but also with plans to expand into cybersecurity programming and medical

services, like nursing. This year, Lambda expects to educate 3,000 students. And if they get

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