Politics & Prose at Busboys and Poets 14th & V welcomes Tressie McMillan Cottom to present their new book "Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy."
For-profit colleges have existed for as long as their non-profit cousins, but today this sector of higher education is experiencing an unprecedented growth. In her disturbing exposé, Cottom, a former admissions counselor at two for-profit schools and now an assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University as well as a frequent media commentator on education, inequality, and pop culture, links this surge in popularity to America’s growing disparities. Drawing on interviews with instructors, executives, activists and, most revealingly, some of the two million-plus students enrolled in these schools, Cottom shows how the focus on profit undermines the quality of education, leads to manipulative marketing, and results in high costs for students.
