Financial inequities impede the ability of already disadvantaged students to learn or feel well, and this is under-explored in EDI and widening participation policy and practice in higher education. Building on five years of evaluations of a project to support medical students from a non-traditional background, analysis of national student-led activism, and research on the subjective experiences of impoverishment, this paper unpacks the widely-held belief that it pays to get a degree. Employing intersectional analyses of economic violence and financial trauma, the paper proposes a wealth justice approach to removing barriers to success for disadvantaged students.