The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students

Anthony Abraham Jack

Harvard University Press, Mar 1, 2019 - Education - 464 pages

An NPR Favorite Book of the Year

“Breaks new ground on social and educational questions of great import.”
—Washington Post

“An essential work, humane and candid, that challenges and expands our understanding of the lives of contemporary college students.”
—Paul Tough, author of Helping Children Succeed

“Eye-opening...Brings home the pain and reality of on-campus poverty and puts the blame squarely on elite institutions.”
—Washington Post

“Jack’s investigation redirects attention from the matter of access to the matter of inclusion...His book challenges universities to support the diversity they indulge in advertising.”
—New Yorker

The Ivy League looks different than it used to. College presidents and deans of admission have opened their doors—and their coffers—to support a more diverse student body. But is it enough just to admit these students? In this bracing exposé, Anthony Jack shows that many students’ struggles continue long after they’ve settled in their dorms. Admission, they quickly learn, is not the same as acceptance. This powerfully argued book documents how university policies and campus culture can exacerbate preexisting inequalities and reveals why some students are harder hit than others.

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - rivkat - LibraryThing

Really interesting and distressing study of students at elite colleges (think Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Stanford) from poor families and communities. Even if they manage to get to an elite school (the ...

Contents

• Can Poor Students Be Privileged?: 1
• 1 Come with Me to Italy: 25
• 2 Can You Sign Your Book for Me?: 79
• 3 I Too Am Hungry: 132
• Beyond Access: 181
• Appendix: 199
• Notes: 225
• Acknowledgments: 259
• Index: 267

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students
• Author: Anthony Abraham Jack
• Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2019
• ISBN: 0674239660, 9780674239661
• Length: 464 pages
• Subjects: Education / Administration / Higher; Education / Philosophy, Theory & Social Aspects; Education / Schools / Levels / Higher; Education / Student Life & Student Affairs; Social Science / Social Classes & Economic Disparity; Social Science / Sociology / General