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

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

Tressie McMillan Cottom • Tressie McMillan Cottom

ISBN-10: 162097438X · ISBN-13: 978‑1620974384 · 2018

Live offer for this book: 9 live copies of this book from $4.96 (as of 2026-09-08).

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Lower Ed is quickly becoming the definitive book on the fastest-growing sector of higher education at the turn of the twenty-first century: for-profit colleges. With sharp insight and deliberate acumen, Tressie McMillan Cottom―a sociologist who was once a recruiter at two for-profit colleges―expertly parses the fraught dynamics of this big-money industry. 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. Now with a new foreword by Stephanie Kelton, economic advisor to Bernie Sanders's presidential campaign, this smart and essential book cuts to the very core of our nation's broken social contracts and the challenges we face in our divided, unequal society. Tressie McMillan Cottom is an assistant professor of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University and the author of Lower Ed and Thick (The New Press). Her work has been featured by the The Daily Show , the New York Times , the Washington Post , PBS, NPR, Fresh Air , and The Atlantic , among others. She lives in Richmond, Virginia.

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