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I have Dr. Cottom's book of essays titled Thick (yet to be read) but just glancing at a few sentences I knew I wanted more of her works, which led me to this & I'm intrigued! It appears to be a critique of the rise of online, for-profit education. I'm curious to see if she discusses the elitism & cost-prohibitiveness of traditional 4yr colleges as well. Or maybe that's her point.🤔 Moving up my TBR! #LetsTravelAugust #College #Nonfiction

Starting this while waiting to drive my BF to pick up his car.

4.5?⭐️ Bought this book by preorder, & then it sat on my shelf, taunting me. I can‘t believe I waited this long to read this incredibly important book about why and how for-profit (“online” in some parlances) colleges and grad schools worked. Dr. Cottom‘s shrewd analysis of credentialism and an economy that puts the responsibility for training and retraining on workers - especially low-income workers - is so strong & important. ⬇️

Boom (in the epilogue, Dr. Cottom lays it allll out); “The quest has become cheaper—better labor at little to no cost for employers. That is unsustainable. Developing people takes time and money, two things that the new economy stresses to the breaking point.”

Review TK in a few minutes.

“Basically, people who were already suffering from inequalities in wealth, income, and resources default on student loans that, by objective measures, are quite small. This pattern makes student loan defaults an inequality problem rather than a financing-scheme problem. The small debts cut deepest because the poorest students take them on. What we know about poverty and near-poverty is that ... ⬇️” #education #sociology

Damn, Dr. Cottom.
“When investors and politicians say that for-profit colleges offer a flexible solution to retrain our workforce, they are talking about inequality. ... Flexible solutions, on-demand educations, open access career retraining, reskilling, and upskilling—these are terms that talk about inequality without taking inequality seriously.”

OUCH. Also, this book is fascinating and excellent and scary and sad.

“Luck isn‘t a plan, and it makes for terrible social and economic policy.” - Stephanie Kelton, in the foreword to Dr. Tressie McMillan Cottom‘s Lower Ed. #sociology #analysis

Started this, which I‘ve been meaning to read since I got a preorder in 2017, last night. First book of May for me.

Just got up and “got situated” for some more reading!

I finished this up in the middle of the night. It‘s a fascinating dissertation-turned-book that chronicles the boom of for-profit colleges in the early 2000s from the unique perspective of a woman in traditional academia who, before that, worked at two different for-profit colleges as an enrollment officer. 4⭐️

#24in48 #24b4monday #readathon

Just passed the halfway point of #24in48 a little before the 24 hr mark. I‘m at around 17 hrs in the #24b4monday #readathon.

Lower Ed is fantastic. I‘d been looking for an academic book on for-profit colleges, and this is a great one! Not really the best readathon book but who cares!? 🤷🏻‍♀️🤣 Switching it up with Educated on audio and A Selfie as Big as the Ritz in print.

Quiet cafe. Book. Tea. Jooooy

Lower Ed was the last non fiction to join my bedside pile of books read in 2017! I shouldn‘t have waited so long to read it!

Had a great time moderating tonight's Writing Show on writing for a small press at the Firehouse Theatre here in Richmond, VA. My panel (L-R) was Dana Louise Provo, Tressie McMillan Cottom, and Jean Huets. #RVA #AmWriting #WriterLife #WritersOfLitsy #JRW17

Picked this up from the library yesterday.