★ 01/06/2014
The long-running debate on higher education in America is masterfully served by Cornell political scientist Mettler’s carefully researched study, which roams between history, polemic, and analysis with aplomb while championing the positive legacy of equal opportunity in education. Mettler (The Submerged State) arrays an impressive arsenal of statistical data to bolster her claim that for-profit educational institutions are not only overpriced, but fail to deliver the promise of higher education to students who leave disproportionately saddled with debt and diminished job prospects. Though the book orbits the central theme of the for-profits and their outsized political influence, she frames this with a history of higher education and its attendant laws, as well as an excellent introduction to political science that explains—in approachable language—the myriad impacts of law and the ways in which the intentions of legislators are often deformed. In one memorable passage, she avoids facile conclusions in examining the role of money in influencing politics, concluding that while money matters, its impact is far more complex than popular cynicism would imagine. These ideas are informed by a sincere belief in the power of education on Mettler’s part, but her analysis does not suffer. She avoids easy sloganeering and instead focuses on plutocracy, partisanship, and how we might end education policy’s “politics of drift.” Agent: Lisa Adams, Garamond Agency. (Mar.)
Gary Rivlin, New York Times Book Review
“We’re having the wrong conversation about higher education in our country. So argues Suzanne Mettler in her provocative new book.... [A] thoroughly researched argument that leaves one both a little bit smarter about how politics work in this country and also very worried about a college and university system so clearly in crisis.”
Washington Post
"[A] provocative new book.... Mettler argues that this drift in public policy over the past quarter-century in Washington and in statehouses has exacerbated gaps between the haves and the have-nots, undermining the ideal of college as an engine of upward social mobility.”
Andrew Delbanco, New York Review of Books
“[A] valuable book.... Mettler tells hair-raising stories about telemarketers who prey on prospective students with misleading promises, and are then rewarded with bonuses or free vacations if they reach enrollment quotas.”
Times Higher Education
“Mettler brings a fresh and original analysis to bear.”
Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
“The long-running debate on higher education in America is masterfully served by Cornell political scientist Mettler’s carefully researched study, which roams between history, polemic, and analysis with aplomb while championing the positive legacy of equal opportunity in education.”
Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
“Mettler delivers a broadside to for-profit universities and the politics that enrich them. The author spent eight years researching and writing her withering attack, and her data is devastating
. A thorough and deeply troubling analysis of a quiet but ominous threat to democracy.”
Library Journal (Starred Review)
“[A] timely and thorough discussion of unequal access to higher education.... This work is essential for students of programs in higher education policy, government, and political science as well as anyone interested in the current state of higher education.”
Booklist
“Reform is past due, and Mettler’s well-researched book needs to fall into the hands of those who will read, heed, and rally for change.”
Thomas E. Mann, author of It’s Even Worse Than It Looks
“Degrees of Inequality is a trenchant analysis of how our severely dysfunctional politics has undermined one of the foundational pillars of the American Dream. Mettler powerfully and convincingly demonstrates how partisan polarization and plutocratic biases have shaped higher education policy in recent years and why reform is so urgent. An engaging and essential read for citizens and policymakers alike.”
Thomas B. Edsall, Columbia University, author of The Age of Austerity
“Suzanne Mettler’s Degrees of Inequality reveals why American higher education is no longer the great equalizer. Instead of providing an avenue to opportunity and advancement, American colleges, especially burgeoning for-profit schools, are contributing to mounting inequality, reinforcing rather than breaking class divisions. The for-profit schools are corrupting the system by syphoning off federal resources and leaving many of the students worse off, burdened by debt and lacking a degree. Mettler’s important book documents the destructive forces in higher education, forces fostered and nurtured by a Congress that has abdicated responsibility to ensure the strength of this country’s most important engine of social mobility.”
★ 2014-01-05
Mettler (Government/Cornell Univ.; The Submerged State: How Invisible Government Policies Undermine American Democracy, 2011, etc.) delivers a broadside to for-profit universities and the politics that enrich them. The author spent eight years researching and writing her withering attack, and her data is devastating. The for-profits have poor graduation rates, poor records of employment for those who do graduate, and vast numbers of people who find themselves greatly in debt (student loans) and, due to their inadequate education and training, unable to find jobs that will enable them to repay their loans. "The reality of these schools," she writes, "has not matched the rhetoric." Mettler's text is also a social and political history of American higher education, and she notes that despite the pervasiveness of anti-elitist rhetoric, polls show that Americans still believe in the importance of higher education. There is a vast difference between the lifetime incomes of those who did and those who did not graduate from college. The author also traces the history of public funding for higher education—all the way back to pre-colonial America—with special emphasis on major projects like the GI Bill and Pell Grants. She notes that increasing tuition is linked closely to the recent cutbacks in state and federal taxes that support higher education, and she uses Colorado as an example. Among her most damning discoveries: The majority of the for-profits receive more than 80 percent of their revenue from the federal government, and their administrators earn far more than their counterparts in brick-and-mortar universities. She notes that for-profits focus on recruitment, not on education. The GOP receives most of her fire, but the Democrats do not escape unscathed. Basically, she writes, the rich go to "real" schools, the poor to the for-profits, exacerbating inequality. A thorough and deeply troubling analysis of a quiet but ominous threat to democracy.