Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy

Published to high acclaim and a flurry of media buzz—including a laudatory tweet from none other than Oprah herself—Lower Ed is quickly becoming the definitive book on an economic and social phenomenon that has shaken the very core of opportunity in America. With sharp insight and deliberate acumen, Tressie McMillan Cottom, an associate professor of sociology who was once a recruiter at two for-profit colleges, expertly parses the fraught dynamics of the big-money industry of for-profit colleges, the fastest growing sector of higher education at the turn of the twenty-first century.

Drawing on more than one hundred interviews with students, employees, executives, and activists, Lower Ed details the benefits, pitfalls, and real costs of the expansion of for-profit colleges. Featured by Newsweek, The Atlantic, Vibe magazine, Mother Jones, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Slate, Pacific Standard, The Leonard Lopate Show, and several other outlets, this New York Times Editor’s Choice book is a smart, essential look at our nation’s broken social contracts and the challenges we face in our divided, unequal society.