The workforce is saturated with Bard College graduates, and these tenacious thespians are at the bottom of the heap. College of Debt Bards are always on the back foot financially, trying desperately to get a job in their chosen field in any way they can, while taking odd jobs to pay the bills in the meantime. If you like never having enough money for anything, constantly worrying about debtor's prison, and voting for any candidate that says they'll clear your debt before you need to declare bankruptcy, look no further than the College of Debt!

Cost Cutting

At 3rd level, you know just how to whine about your debt to other people in order to gain their sympathy. When you make a Charisma (Persuasion) check to bargain for more money on a job, you can treat a d20 roll of 9 or lower as a 10. Additionally, you also receive 10% more gold for every job you do, and everything you buy is 10% cheaper (costs and gains are rounded down in both instances).

First World Tears

At 6th level, you gain the ability to blend in with people with whom you share no lived experience. When you make a Charisma check of any variety, you add double your proficiency bonus to the skill, so long as you make the person you are speaking to feel sufficiently bad that you chose to get a liberal arts degree from an expensive private school. Additionally, you can perform this feature even when other players are speaking to assist their roll, and add your proficiency bonus (not doubled) to their roll.

Virtue Signalling

At 6th level, you are so adept at making other people feel bad for your poor financial decisions that whenever an ally that you can see takes damage, you can expend a point of your Bardic Inspiration as a Bonus action to grant them Temporary Hit Points equal to your Bardic Inspiration die, plus your spellcasting modifier. These instances of Temporary Hit Points stack with themselves infinitely, but cannot be shared with other sources of Temporary Hit Points. Additionally, your party member now has to listen to you complain about how the system is conspiring against you during your next short, or long rest. If the player is another "educated" class (Wizard, Cleric, Artificer), they must pass a concentration check, or gain a level of fatigue because of how much you berated them for getting an actually useful degree.

Cancel Culture

At 14th level, you have learned how to make your self hatred for getting a liberal arts degree into everyone else's problem. Whenever a creature that you can see takes an offensive action, you may expend a point of your Bardic Inspiration Dice to immediately deal Psychic damage equal to your Bardic Inspiration Dice plus your ability score modifier to the target as you berate them with all the ways that they are violating civil society. Additionally, the creature must make a Wisdom Saving Throw against your Spell DC or gain disadvantage on their next attack, because now they feel bad.

Bankruptcy

At 18th level you may declare bankruptcy, absolving yourself of all of your debt, no matter the size of it. However, you may no longer make use of any in-game banks, and nobody will give you a loan. 

Gold Sink

As a College of Debt Bard, you are in debt an amount of Gold that is equal to the combined level of every Bard spell you take, plus your current level, multiplied by 500 (Cantrips count as first level spells). However unfortunately for you, the interest on the Gold is always rising. For every level in Bard you take, and every spell level from Bard spells you gain as you level up, add their value (multiplied by 500) to your current debt.

If you do not make regular payments on this debt, you will have debt collectors sent after you, or worse, your wages might be garnished! Every 1d10 in game days, a group of debt collectors seeks you out. These debt collectors will only track you in cities and towns however, so you can avoid them for more time the longer you avoid your problems by staying off-grid. If the debt collectors (whose stat blocks are decided by the dungeon master) are not paid, they may try to extract payment by force, or garnish your wages the next time that you receive payment from a city, town, or any state official, cutting your earned gold by one half for that payout.

Any amount of gold paid, paid to collectors, or garnished, is subtracted from your Debt, although if paid to collectors, they may choose to cut themselves in, and some of that gold may be lost in transit. If you pay off your debt, you still keep gaining the features of this subclass, and your Credit Score improves. You are automatically approved for any loans in cities you visit.