Degrees of Inequality: How the Politics of Higher Education Sabotaged the American Dream Kindle Edition

by Suzanne Mettler (Author)

28 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-0465072002

ISBN-10: 0465072003

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America's higher education system is failing its students. In the space of a generation, we have gone from being the best-educated society in the world to one surpassed by eleven other nations in college graduation rates. Higher education is evolving into a caste system with separate and unequal tiers that take in students from different socio-economic backgrounds and leave them more unequal than when they first enrolled.

Until the 1970s, the United States had a proud history of promoting higher education for its citizens. The Morrill Act, the G.I. Bill and Pell Grants enabled Americans from across the income spectrum to attend college and the nation led the world in the percentage of young adults with baccalaureate degrees. Yet since 1980, progress has stalled. Young adults from low to middle income families are not much more likely to graduate from college than four decades ago. When less advantaged students do attend, they are largely sequestered into inferior and often profit-driven institutions, from which many emerge without degrees and shouldering crushing levels of debt.

In Degrees of Inequality, acclaimed political scientist Suzanne Mettler explains why the system has gone so horribly wrong and why the American Dream is increasingly out of reach for so many. In her eye-opening account, she illuminates how political partisanship has overshadowed America s commitment to equal access to higher education. As politicians capitulate to corporate interests, owners of for-profit colleges benefit, but for far too many students, higher education leaves them with little besides crippling student loan debt. Meanwhile, the nation s public universities have shifted the burden of rising costs onto students. In an era when a college degree is more linked than ever before to individual and societal well-being, these pressures conspire to make it increasingly difficult for students to stay in school long enough to graduate.

By abandoning their commitment to students, politicians are imperiling our highest ideals as a nation. Degrees of Inequality offers an impassioned call to reform a higher education system that has come to exacerbate, rather than mitigate, socioeconomic inequality in America.

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Product details

File Size: 1853 KB
Print Length: 274 pages
Publisher: Basic Books (March 4, 2014)
Publication Date: March 4, 2014
Language: English
ASIN: B00G1SD55C
Text-to-Speech: Enabled

X-Ray for Textbooks:

Enabled

Word Wise: Enabled
Lending: Not Enabled
Screen Reader: Supported

Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #792,188 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #400 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Education & Teaching > Teacher Resources > Education Theory > Education Policy & Reform
- #421 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Education & Teaching > Teacher Resources > Policy
- #649 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Elections & Political Process > Practical Politics

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Thoughtful study of high cost of higher education

July 9, 2014

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

If you are interested in what's happening in higher education in America, this book is well worth reading. The author, a professor at Cornell University, concentrates on the public education system in the U.S. and gives the history of how our university system developed. The book gave me a far better understanding of the different attitudes toward private vs. public colleges the East and the West of the country. Prof. Mettler's focus is the politics behind the development of higher education policy during the post-WWII years. She is very concerned about the growth of for-profit universities which receive the bulk of tax-based borrowing for colleges. Many of them target working class students many of whom over-borrow and cannot find jobs. They drop out of school and many default on their student loans. We read a lot about the burden of student debt, this books helps to explain how this problem has grown. Unfortunately it is likely to be difficult to get Congress to change the system.

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December 2, 2017

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

It is a must read...providing tremendous insight into postsecondary education inequality within the United States of America. It is a book that thoroughly absorbed my attention, and one that I'm so grateful I read. Dr. Suzanne Mettler, thank you!

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October 11, 2017

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

I need more info.

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Knowing to do it better

January 23, 2016

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Insightful review of how higher education has been funded in the USA. Clearly articulates her analysis of the dysfunctional politics that have been supporting economic inequality. Even though the situation presented would make anybody pessimistic Mettler's book gives a sense of optimism.

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Dr. Laura M. Harrison

insightful and important work

November 22, 2014

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This book explains many of the complex phenomena that have eroded higher education's role in ameliorating class inequality. It's both thoughtful and well-researched; I highly recommend it to anyone trying to understand, articulate, and ultimately address the disturbing gap between the educationally privileged and oppressed.

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An Eye-Opener of a Book

February 20, 2015

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

This is an eye-opening book about the intersection of money, politics, and education as they affect how institutions are run. An excellent piece of readable research that will have you re-evaluating the haves and have nots in education.

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Shoshana Gebelmamm

April 12, 2016

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

important book with information parents need to know before sending their children to college

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Consuela Mitchell

Highly relevant book!

April 11, 2015

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Important book to better understand how much lobbyists have influenced contemporary higher education. Must read for all higher education administrators or students.

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Most recent customer reviews

Good analysis and argument

As some of the other reviews point out, this book makes powerful arguments about the problems of our higher education system and makes some proposals for improvements.Read more

Published 10 months ago

Published 1 year ago

really boring read for such an interesting and important topic

Published on November 29, 2015

Sabotaging the American Dream

Suzanne Mettler’s book Degrees of Inequality is sub-titled, “How the Politics of Higher Education Sabotaged the American Dream.Read more

Published on October 14, 2015

An important book on economic and educational inequality

I read a review of this fine book in The New York Review of Books. Every member of Congress should read her chapter on for-profit "universities."

Published on July 15, 2015

One thing that I would have liked the book to have is a few opinions on ...

This book is very informative in how the politics of a higher education has destroyed the American dream.Read more

Published on July 11, 2015

Save your money, read the introduction and you will ...

Save your money, read the introduction and you will be done. I use it as an sleeping aid ... google her lecture for free.

Published on February 23, 2015

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