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The Years That Matter Most: How College Makes or Breaks Us
“Indelible and extraordinary.”—Tara Westover, author of Educated: A Memoir, New York Times Book Review
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
The best-selling author of How Children Succeed returns with a powerful, mind-changing inquiry into higher education in the United States
Does college still work? Is the system designed just to protect the privileged and leave everyone else behind? Or can a college education today provide real opportunity to young Americans seeking to improve their station in life?
The Years That Matter Most tells the stories of students trying to find their way, with hope, joy, and frustration, through the application process and into college. Drawing on new research, the book reveals how the landscape of higher education has shifted in recent decades and exposes the hidden truths of how the system works and whom it works for. And it introduces us to the people who really make higher education go: admissions directors trying to balance the class and balance the budget, College Board officials scrambling to defend the SAT in the face of mounting evidence that it favors the wealthy, researchers working to unlock the mysteries of the college-student brain, and educators trying to transform potential dropouts into successful graduates.
With insight, humor, and passion, Paul Tough takes readers on a journey from Ivy League seminar rooms to community college welding shops, from giant public flagship universities to tiny experimental storefront colleges. Whether you are facing your own decision about college or simply care about the American promise of social mobility, The Years That Matter Most will change the way you think—not just about higher education, but about the nation itself.
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
The best-selling author of How Children Succeed returns with a powerful, mind-changing inquiry into higher education in the United States
Does college still work? Is the system designed just to protect the privileged and leave everyone else behind? Or can a college education today provide real opportunity to young Americans seeking to improve their station in life?
The Years That Matter Most tells the stories of students trying to find their way, with hope, joy, and frustration, through the application process and into college. Drawing on new research, the book reveals how the landscape of higher education has shifted in recent decades and exposes the hidden truths of how the system works and whom it works for. And it introduces us to the people who really make higher education go: admissions directors trying to balance the class and balance the budget, College Board officials scrambling to defend the SAT in the face of mounting evidence that it favors the wealthy, researchers working to unlock the mysteries of the college-student brain, and educators trying to transform potential dropouts into successful graduates.
With insight, humor, and passion, Paul Tough takes readers on a journey from Ivy League seminar rooms to community college welding shops, from giant public flagship universities to tiny experimental storefront colleges. Whether you are facing your own decision about college or simply care about the American promise of social mobility, The Years That Matter Most will change the way you think—not just about higher education, but about the nation itself.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published September 10, 2019
340 people are currently reading
9053 people want to read
About the author
Paul Tough
13 books420 followersPaul Tough is the author, most recently, of The Inequality Machine. His three previous books include How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character, which was translated into 27 languages and spent more than a year on the New York Times hardcover and paperback best-seller lists. Paul is a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine; his writing has also appeared in the New Yorker, the Atlantic, and GQ, and on the op-ed page of the New York Times. He is a speaker on topics including education, parenting, equity, and student success. He has worked as an editor at the New York Times Magazine and Harper’s Magazine and as a reporter and producer for This American Life. He was the founding editor of Open Letters, an online magazine. He lives with his wife and two sons in Austin, Texas, and Montauk, New York. For more information, please visit his web site or follow him on Twitter.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 374 reviews
November 25, 2019
First up, this isn’t a guide on how to get into college. Nor is it reassurance that it doesn’t matter which college you get into. Instead, it’s an examination of the college playing field, and not only will you better understand just how tilted it is but also how, even when where attempts are made to make it more level, the inequalities can persist. At the same time, Tough highlights signals of hope and bright spots where dedicated people are invested in helping more students succeed in and benefit from the college system. This is an insightful and thought-provoking read.
If you are a parent of a high schooler, reading the section, Letting In, on how colleges approach admissions is simultaneously insightful and scary. You’ll learn that, thanks to enrollment managers who can crunch data to predict financial impact decisions, “if you pick any two freshman at the same college, they are likely to be paying completely different tuition rates. Those rates are not based on the true value of the service the college is offering or even on the ability of the student’s family to pay; instead they are based on a complex calculation of what the student is worth to the college and what the college is worth to the student.”
Tough also gave me a whole new appreciation and respect for the colleges that are going “test optional” (ie. no longer taking SAT or ACT scores into account). He lays out the research that shows how relying too heavily on these test scores mean some high-potential students can miss out on a college spot. Thanks to Tough, I had a much more informed reaction to the announcement that students will be able to retake specific subjects in the ACT, rather than the whole test, starting in September 2020.
I also am so grateful to people like Professor David Laude and Professor Uri Treisman (both at the University of Texas) for being curious about why some students were not succeeding, investing time and effort into understanding why, and then experimenting with ways to improve their outcomes. Laude identified fourteen data points to predict a student’s likelihood of of graduating and, in retrospect, it won’t surprise you that they include things like family income, SAT scores, and parents' educational background. These are kids who arrive at college without the benefits of having advice from parents who understand how college works, the cushion of money, and previous access to a wide range of APs at high school. Once they are at college, they can feel socially isolated and are often worried about money. Add on starting to struggle with classes (because they are tackling material for the first time that their fellow students may have already studied at high school) and it’s no wonder that they can mistakenly believe they don’t fit in. How do we ensure they don’t flounder in this new, unfamiliar world that’s demanding in a way they’ve never experienced compared to many of the more affluent, advantaged students? Laude and Triesman show the way.
Finally, Tough ends with a look at the inspiring audacity and impact of the G.I. Bill in changing the economic and social mobility of hundreds of thousands of families across America for the better. He contrasts it today with how there is now an ideological division around college. One perspective is summed up by Rick Santorum when he was running for president in 2012, and said that trying to have more people get a college degree makes you a “snob.” (Tough points out that Santorum “bravely endured the snobbery of the American college campus just long enough to collect a BA, and then an MBA, and then a law degree.”) Unfortunately, arguments using data never win over arguments using emotion. So Tough challenges us all to think about how we can help more people understand that “our collective public education benefits us all.”
Great book to read and discuss with your book club.
If you are a parent of a high schooler, reading the section, Letting In, on how colleges approach admissions is simultaneously insightful and scary. You’ll learn that, thanks to enrollment managers who can crunch data to predict financial impact decisions, “if you pick any two freshman at the same college, they are likely to be paying completely different tuition rates. Those rates are not based on the true value of the service the college is offering or even on the ability of the student’s family to pay; instead they are based on a complex calculation of what the student is worth to the college and what the college is worth to the student.”
Tough also gave me a whole new appreciation and respect for the colleges that are going “test optional” (ie. no longer taking SAT or ACT scores into account). He lays out the research that shows how relying too heavily on these test scores mean some high-potential students can miss out on a college spot. Thanks to Tough, I had a much more informed reaction to the announcement that students will be able to retake specific subjects in the ACT, rather than the whole test, starting in September 2020.
I also am so grateful to people like Professor David Laude and Professor Uri Treisman (both at the University of Texas) for being curious about why some students were not succeeding, investing time and effort into understanding why, and then experimenting with ways to improve their outcomes. Laude identified fourteen data points to predict a student’s likelihood of of graduating and, in retrospect, it won’t surprise you that they include things like family income, SAT scores, and parents' educational background. These are kids who arrive at college without the benefits of having advice from parents who understand how college works, the cushion of money, and previous access to a wide range of APs at high school. Once they are at college, they can feel socially isolated and are often worried about money. Add on starting to struggle with classes (because they are tackling material for the first time that their fellow students may have already studied at high school) and it’s no wonder that they can mistakenly believe they don’t fit in. How do we ensure they don’t flounder in this new, unfamiliar world that’s demanding in a way they’ve never experienced compared to many of the more affluent, advantaged students? Laude and Triesman show the way.
Finally, Tough ends with a look at the inspiring audacity and impact of the G.I. Bill in changing the economic and social mobility of hundreds of thousands of families across America for the better. He contrasts it today with how there is now an ideological division around college. One perspective is summed up by Rick Santorum when he was running for president in 2012, and said that trying to have more people get a college degree makes you a “snob.” (Tough points out that Santorum “bravely endured the snobbery of the American college campus just long enough to collect a BA, and then an MBA, and then a law degree.”) Unfortunately, arguments using data never win over arguments using emotion. So Tough challenges us all to think about how we can help more people understand that “our collective public education benefits us all.”
Great book to read and discuss with your book club.
September 14, 2020
There were about two weeks where I seriously considered studying in the United States. However, after filling up one page of the nightmare that is the Common App, I asked myself if I would actually go study at any American college if I got accepted. I realized that my answer was, "mm, probably not, I just wanna know if I can get in". That's not a good enough reason and so I stopped. Reading this made me realize how incredibly happy I am with my decision.
The Years That Matter Most: How College Makes or Breaks Us is an interesting look at American colleges. With careful research, Tough discusses the flaws of the American tertiary education. He highlights the flaws of the acceptance system, discusses social mobility, describes the academic struggles of low-income students and digs deep into various solutions.
There's a lot to think about in this book. It was deeply disappointing to see how for-profit colleges work. Tough shows that colleges end up calculating how much each student is worth for them and creating a tuition for each student based on what they would pay. It's wild to consider that colleges have such an impact on people's futures and yet, these decisions aren't being made by people who have their best interests at heart.
However, how can a college actually determine who to accept? I find it unfair that American college applications require so much personal information. It becomes about your ability to turn your life into an inspirational story. Interviews, essays and all of that seem to simply test your ability to market yourself and not much else. Tough highlights how standardized tests are a direct reflection of the financial situation of the student which is obviously unfair. What is the alternative? Aren't there better ways to determine who will succeed in an academic setting?
There's a chapter where Tough discusses the way students choose universities. Students from educated families end up deciding based on the highest ranked college that accepts them. Students without this have other considerations, such as their comfort, distance from home, and familiarity. This shows the way students from lower income families might give up on a high ranking university, despite having the skills to succeed there. Tough really manages to bring this to life by describing two students and showing their decision making process.
My favorite chapter was the one where Tough talks about university education. I have courses where professors gleefully announce that a lot of the class will fail and that it's on purpose. To me, if you're a professor and much of your class is failing, it's a sign that you are failing as a professor and as a teacher. It makes me really sad to see how beautiful subjects are ruined by this weird form of elitism, as if a class average of 60 implies the subject is somehow more respectful.
As a counter example, Tough tells about a college professor who worked on making sure more students pass their first year. It was inspirational to see how with great effort, it is possible to really make a huge difference for students who really need it. It made me think about how little most universities do in order to guarantee this. I wonder if professors from such courses realize that there are students that end up leaving the profession because such exams convince them they can't make it (ahem, Economics, watch me migrate to Business).
In many ways, this book is just a list of problems and several failed solutions. Everywhere Tough looks he finds yet another institutional problem that hurts the weakest members of our society. It's very thoroughly researched but it's also just very overwhelming to see how systematic this all is.
Does everyone need a college education? It seems that the most educated countries stand only at 50%. Tough describes the challenges of working in a trade and the way a degree can open doors and create opportunities. At the same time, I feel like I didn't come to university to get a job and I get the impression my professors don't see themselves as work training. What is the role exactly of university education?
With coronavirus and online learning, I feel like we're beginning to ask the necessary questions. Is the university set-up actually relevant for 2020? Can we do better? What's the actual benefit of studying in an auditorium with hundreds of other students (apart from new friendships, thank god for my auditorium Ethics friends!)? Is there a point of an exam without open material, considering in life afterwards you always have all of the material? What exactly is university meant to give us?
My one criticism about this book is that it's not international at all. I think that's a shame because this conversation is global. I would have loved to see how top universities, especially in Asia and Europe compare. Do global universities offer more social mobility? What about non-profit universities? Is university more accessible in other countries?
To conclude, this is really a recommended book. It's well researched and written well. If you're wondering about the flaws of American colleges, this gives a good introduction.
What I'm Taking with Me
- I've been looking at European universities like, "who here wants to let me do a Phd in Politics after only having an MBA and a Bachelors? Anyone? Pls, isn't it a thing to suggest running a country like a business? Won't my knowledge in businesses help me understand how governments should work? let me live my dreams without actually doing a second masters"
- And yet, in the same time I'm like idk, I thought I'd like the academic world more than I actually do and that really makes me question what will be next after my degree (which I realize is in a while but I'm nothing if not an overplanner).
- Colleges consider both American Black students and African and Caribbean foreign students as Black students. Obviously they have very different experiences, especially when considering most of those foreign exchange students are very wealthy. It kind of feels like cheating, I mean, a rich Ghanaian will live a good life without Yale. Shouldn't such universities spend more time empowering those who are in greater need of help?
-------------------------------------------------
Before reading this book I thought colleges were messed up but now, after finishing it, I realize that I had no idea just how bad things are.
Review to come!
The Years That Matter Most: How College Makes or Breaks Us is an interesting look at American colleges. With careful research, Tough discusses the flaws of the American tertiary education. He highlights the flaws of the acceptance system, discusses social mobility, describes the academic struggles of low-income students and digs deep into various solutions.
There's a lot to think about in this book. It was deeply disappointing to see how for-profit colleges work. Tough shows that colleges end up calculating how much each student is worth for them and creating a tuition for each student based on what they would pay. It's wild to consider that colleges have such an impact on people's futures and yet, these decisions aren't being made by people who have their best interests at heart.
However, how can a college actually determine who to accept? I find it unfair that American college applications require so much personal information. It becomes about your ability to turn your life into an inspirational story. Interviews, essays and all of that seem to simply test your ability to market yourself and not much else. Tough highlights how standardized tests are a direct reflection of the financial situation of the student which is obviously unfair. What is the alternative? Aren't there better ways to determine who will succeed in an academic setting?
There's a chapter where Tough discusses the way students choose universities. Students from educated families end up deciding based on the highest ranked college that accepts them. Students without this have other considerations, such as their comfort, distance from home, and familiarity. This shows the way students from lower income families might give up on a high ranking university, despite having the skills to succeed there. Tough really manages to bring this to life by describing two students and showing their decision making process.
My favorite chapter was the one where Tough talks about university education. I have courses where professors gleefully announce that a lot of the class will fail and that it's on purpose. To me, if you're a professor and much of your class is failing, it's a sign that you are failing as a professor and as a teacher. It makes me really sad to see how beautiful subjects are ruined by this weird form of elitism, as if a class average of 60 implies the subject is somehow more respectful.
As a counter example, Tough tells about a college professor who worked on making sure more students pass their first year. It was inspirational to see how with great effort, it is possible to really make a huge difference for students who really need it. It made me think about how little most universities do in order to guarantee this. I wonder if professors from such courses realize that there are students that end up leaving the profession because such exams convince them they can't make it (ahem, Economics, watch me migrate to Business).
In many ways, this book is just a list of problems and several failed solutions. Everywhere Tough looks he finds yet another institutional problem that hurts the weakest members of our society. It's very thoroughly researched but it's also just very overwhelming to see how systematic this all is.
Does everyone need a college education? It seems that the most educated countries stand only at 50%. Tough describes the challenges of working in a trade and the way a degree can open doors and create opportunities. At the same time, I feel like I didn't come to university to get a job and I get the impression my professors don't see themselves as work training. What is the role exactly of university education?
With coronavirus and online learning, I feel like we're beginning to ask the necessary questions. Is the university set-up actually relevant for 2020? Can we do better? What's the actual benefit of studying in an auditorium with hundreds of other students (apart from new friendships, thank god for my auditorium Ethics friends!)? Is there a point of an exam without open material, considering in life afterwards you always have all of the material? What exactly is university meant to give us?
My one criticism about this book is that it's not international at all. I think that's a shame because this conversation is global. I would have loved to see how top universities, especially in Asia and Europe compare. Do global universities offer more social mobility? What about non-profit universities? Is university more accessible in other countries?
To conclude, this is really a recommended book. It's well researched and written well. If you're wondering about the flaws of American colleges, this gives a good introduction.
What I'm Taking with Me
- I've been looking at European universities like, "who here wants to let me do a Phd in Politics after only having an MBA and a Bachelors? Anyone? Pls, isn't it a thing to suggest running a country like a business? Won't my knowledge in businesses help me understand how governments should work? let me live my dreams without actually doing a second masters"
- And yet, in the same time I'm like idk, I thought I'd like the academic world more than I actually do and that really makes me question what will be next after my degree (which I realize is in a while but I'm nothing if not an overplanner).
- Colleges consider both American Black students and African and Caribbean foreign students as Black students. Obviously they have very different experiences, especially when considering most of those foreign exchange students are very wealthy. It kind of feels like cheating, I mean, a rich Ghanaian will live a good life without Yale. Shouldn't such universities spend more time empowering those who are in greater need of help?
-------------------------------------------------
Before reading this book I thought colleges were messed up but now, after finishing it, I realize that I had no idea just how bad things are.
Review to come!
October 17, 2019
In The Years That Matter Most, Paul Tough asks whether Americans should go to university.
Does meritorious social mobility exist in America or has it been corrupted by inherited wealth? Under the old social mobility model, which still gets props, Americans who outworked others reached the top and consequently deserved their fabulous wealth and lofty status. The postwar generations blazed a new myth of meritorious prosperity: in the university, the diligent, intelligent, and credentialed would rise. Today, the popularity and power of that myth is undeniable, so students across the USA work very hard to ace tests to gain entry to institutions that take them straight to the top. But you have to pay to play—pay for tutors, for tours, for connections (e.g. legacy). A silver spoon helps, and in the aggregate it ultimately grants wealth and status. Does it grant merit?
The conventional wisdom I’ve often heard is that students should find a good fit to thrive in; Tough suggests that might have been true in 1962 but now students do seem to make the best choice if they go to the most selective college. American students who can land a spot in an Ivy League university stand a very good chance of becoming a 1 percenter (here defined as an annual income of ~US$650K) relative to graduates from even slightly less prestigious universities. (Is this statistic inflated by Wall Street jobs? Tough doesn't explore the possibility.) So elite schools prioritize test scores, and affluent students choose the most selective university they can enter based on those scores. Because elite universities spend more per pupil than other universities do—sometimes over a hundred thousand dollars per year more—exorbitant American tuition at the top may still be a bargain, even if the "value added" is tricky to calculate everywhere else.
Clearly, tests like the SAT and ACT are influential, but they strongly reward the wealthy. Can we make them more equitable? It doesn’t seem so. The College Board and Khan Academy partnered and released glowing press releases (which were turned into glowing headlines) but the data focused on carefully chosen categories that obscured the broader truth: online SAT training mostly doesn’t do anything. The rich retain their advantage, even if the lottery students (poor but brilliant) who are accepted into these elite institutions consistently wonder (when interviewed by Tough, at least) why they deserve to rise. Interestingly, some less than elite universities stopped admitting based on the tests since high school GPA is a better predictor of university success than the SAT (the SAT and GPA are slightly more reliable, but if you have a GPA and income, maybe you're set). Now, universities are building data banks of SAT scores, ACT scores, and family incomes in order to determine who they should admit. I couldn't escape the thought that universities are not so well designed to establish merit and hierarchy, but they've become obsessed with both tasks.
As Tough moves to his conclusion, the focus shifts from merit to whether post-secondary education is worth the hype. Has college become underrated? He writes:
Is university worth it? For me, it was, and though I've rarely thought of my degree as a monetary return on investment I'm sure I'm better off. Tough's analysis focuses on whether getting an education pays off and ultimately calls for more people to attend university because "our collective public education befits us all."
*
Some random notes. Because Tough mostly avoids considering whether getting an education can help develop an authentic or deeper sense of "self" or citizenship, Educated, by Westover, might be a productive companion read. It’s not surprising that Amy Chua, author of Tiger Mother, works at Yale--her advice sounds like that of an insider who knows some shortcuts and doesn't want to rock the boat. Tough often references a book, Pedigree, that argues that being a lacrosse bro is more advantageous than a pleb like me could imagine because lacrosse is a high cost of access sport that rewards hard work, a way of separating the gritty among the elite. The book I read previous to this one, Malcolm Gladwell's Talking to Strangers, was timely. Tough's style, argumentation, and research all put Gladwell to shame. Having said that, Gladwell's thesis, that people often want to believe that others are as truthful as they are and therefore accept those people's lies, does seem like a useful starting point for exploring merit, status, wealth and elite post-secondary education in the USA. And of course, let's not forget The Great Gatsby, whose conclusion could have been written here: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
Does meritorious social mobility exist in America or has it been corrupted by inherited wealth? Under the old social mobility model, which still gets props, Americans who outworked others reached the top and consequently deserved their fabulous wealth and lofty status. The postwar generations blazed a new myth of meritorious prosperity: in the university, the diligent, intelligent, and credentialed would rise. Today, the popularity and power of that myth is undeniable, so students across the USA work very hard to ace tests to gain entry to institutions that take them straight to the top. But you have to pay to play—pay for tutors, for tours, for connections (e.g. legacy). A silver spoon helps, and in the aggregate it ultimately grants wealth and status. Does it grant merit?
The conventional wisdom I’ve often heard is that students should find a good fit to thrive in; Tough suggests that might have been true in 1962 but now students do seem to make the best choice if they go to the most selective college. American students who can land a spot in an Ivy League university stand a very good chance of becoming a 1 percenter (here defined as an annual income of ~US$650K) relative to graduates from even slightly less prestigious universities. (Is this statistic inflated by Wall Street jobs? Tough doesn't explore the possibility.) So elite schools prioritize test scores, and affluent students choose the most selective university they can enter based on those scores. Because elite universities spend more per pupil than other universities do—sometimes over a hundred thousand dollars per year more—exorbitant American tuition at the top may still be a bargain, even if the "value added" is tricky to calculate everywhere else.
Clearly, tests like the SAT and ACT are influential, but they strongly reward the wealthy. Can we make them more equitable? It doesn’t seem so. The College Board and Khan Academy partnered and released glowing press releases (which were turned into glowing headlines) but the data focused on carefully chosen categories that obscured the broader truth: online SAT training mostly doesn’t do anything. The rich retain their advantage, even if the lottery students (poor but brilliant) who are accepted into these elite institutions consistently wonder (when interviewed by Tough, at least) why they deserve to rise. Interestingly, some less than elite universities stopped admitting based on the tests since high school GPA is a better predictor of university success than the SAT (the SAT and GPA are slightly more reliable, but if you have a GPA and income, maybe you're set). Now, universities are building data banks of SAT scores, ACT scores, and family incomes in order to determine who they should admit. I couldn't escape the thought that universities are not so well designed to establish merit and hierarchy, but they've become obsessed with both tasks.
As Tough moves to his conclusion, the focus shifts from merit to whether post-secondary education is worth the hype. Has college become underrated? He writes:
you could hear the same arguments, day after day, on Fox & Friends or Tucker Carlson Tonight: four-year colleges were offering America's youth nothing but safe spaces, emotional-support dogs, and towering mounds of student debt; meanwhile, high-paying welding jobs were sitting vacant because millennial snowflakes were afraid to get their hands dirty. One of the many odd things about the rhetoric that posits welding as the antithesis of college is that in order to become a welder, you actually have to go to college.He also learns that welders in the USA tend to earn less than graduates from liberal arts colleges (yes, even philosophy majors). Further, he notes the irony of so many critics of education speaking from behind their elite degrees (I wonder if these politicians denigrate university because they bought their way in). Ultimately, it's hard not to feel for the people he interviews who don't go to university and then do everything they can to get credentialed so they can get ahead.
Is university worth it? For me, it was, and though I've rarely thought of my degree as a monetary return on investment I'm sure I'm better off. Tough's analysis focuses on whether getting an education pays off and ultimately calls for more people to attend university because "our collective public education befits us all."
*
Some random notes. Because Tough mostly avoids considering whether getting an education can help develop an authentic or deeper sense of "self" or citizenship, Educated, by Westover, might be a productive companion read. It’s not surprising that Amy Chua, author of Tiger Mother, works at Yale--her advice sounds like that of an insider who knows some shortcuts and doesn't want to rock the boat. Tough often references a book, Pedigree, that argues that being a lacrosse bro is more advantageous than a pleb like me could imagine because lacrosse is a high cost of access sport that rewards hard work, a way of separating the gritty among the elite. The book I read previous to this one, Malcolm Gladwell's Talking to Strangers, was timely. Tough's style, argumentation, and research all put Gladwell to shame. Having said that, Gladwell's thesis, that people often want to believe that others are as truthful as they are and therefore accept those people's lies, does seem like a useful starting point for exploring merit, status, wealth and elite post-secondary education in the USA. And of course, let's not forget The Great Gatsby, whose conclusion could have been written here: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
September 29, 2019
Of all the college and meritocracy books, this is the best and the most interesting. Tough cuts through the data and the hype and offers a timely analysis of inequality and meritocracy as it relates to the college admissions process. In sum, it is not really a meritocracy. The SAT correlates with family income. Elite colleges take mostly rich kids. And it actually does matter which college you go to. He also debunks the dumb trope about how people should skip college to become welders making $100k (See Marco Rubio). Turns out you have to go to college to be a welder and you only make 35k. The one thing that I think is missing from some of these books is an attempt to think through other reasons for a college education besides future income—maybe like learning to think and be a human or whatever. I get that with college being so expensive these days, you really want to make sure you can earn money afterwards and it still might be the best way to evaluate the decision to attend or not or which college to go to, but I do just want to note that there are other benefits to those 4 years.
January 11, 2023
“If we now want to nudge our country back in that direction, we might begin by embracing a principle that seemed self-evident to Americans a century ago, but is less widely acknowledged today: Our collective public education benefits us all.”
From the writer who brought you How Children Succeed comes an insightful and thoroughly researched study of the role of college in the lives of young people, families, and the American economy. Tough is at his best: the arguments and ideas are illustrated by wonderfully detailed and deeply personal stories of young people just trying to move up in the world. There’s plenty of data, too, backing up ideas about standardized tests and economics (though it was written pre-pandemic, so slightly dated). Also, there’s an inside look into the workings of the admission and enrollment at a number of colleges and universities, a feature I wasn’t expecting. But it shines best when we hear about people from tough circumstances trying to better their lives. It’s wonderfully inspiring, and you won’t be disappointed.
I’m a little uneasy, however, with the “Hoxby” principle: choose the college that’s most selective, because they spend the most money on you. I’m not sure that’s a “one-size-fits-all” solution, but I get it: the book is very centered on the principle of education as a gateway to social mobility. It’s a noble cause, but are we saying the only measure of success is financial success? I don’t think I’ll be counseling in this way.
But he saves it later by sharing more stories of students who found a passion for something unlikely to bring them giant financial success, or who were on a less competitive-college track. And the sentence above is part of a paragraph, and chapter, that has the power to restore my belief in the idea of college: that education is a public good and we should be striving for that. Makes me more dedicated to making it happen for everyone.
Very informative and some well-researched and explained ideas. Great for anyone interested in education, economics, or just some great stories of young people.
From the writer who brought you How Children Succeed comes an insightful and thoroughly researched study of the role of college in the lives of young people, families, and the American economy. Tough is at his best: the arguments and ideas are illustrated by wonderfully detailed and deeply personal stories of young people just trying to move up in the world. There’s plenty of data, too, backing up ideas about standardized tests and economics (though it was written pre-pandemic, so slightly dated). Also, there’s an inside look into the workings of the admission and enrollment at a number of colleges and universities, a feature I wasn’t expecting. But it shines best when we hear about people from tough circumstances trying to better their lives. It’s wonderfully inspiring, and you won’t be disappointed.
I’m a little uneasy, however, with the “Hoxby” principle: choose the college that’s most selective, because they spend the most money on you. I’m not sure that’s a “one-size-fits-all” solution, but I get it: the book is very centered on the principle of education as a gateway to social mobility. It’s a noble cause, but are we saying the only measure of success is financial success? I don’t think I’ll be counseling in this way.
But he saves it later by sharing more stories of students who found a passion for something unlikely to bring them giant financial success, or who were on a less competitive-college track. And the sentence above is part of a paragraph, and chapter, that has the power to restore my belief in the idea of college: that education is a public good and we should be striving for that. Makes me more dedicated to making it happen for everyone.
Very informative and some well-researched and explained ideas. Great for anyone interested in education, economics, or just some great stories of young people.
September 22, 2019
Paul Tough’s new book is an addition to the literature of how the elite college applications process in the US, while always tied to replicating status and class, has recently grown even more so to the point where it is grossly unfair to most potential applicants, who lack the family resources, educational histories, and contacts to successfully apply to top college and to benefit and prosper at those colleges if they manage to secure admission. The application process writ large is shown as an anxiety provoking and highly stressful process for most, even while it is the elite colleges who manage the process to achieve their own objectives and secure the maximum resources from students and donors in the process. Efforts to improve on the success of poorer less advantaged students are discussed, along with recent economic analyses that shed light on the economics of higher education trends. The author builds his book on a combination of wide ranging interviews with a spectrum of participants in the admissions game, along with thoughtful looks at some of the data analyses that are accumulating about elite higher education. The overall direction of the book is that many more deserving students could benefit from access to elite schools, that the country would be better for their doing so, and that the putative shortcomings of underprivileged applicants are either overstated or else capable of being addressed to some degree through investments by schools in better teaching of freshmen in critical courses. Especially interesting in this regard are some long chapters on developments at the University of Texas. The net conclusion of the book, however, is not overly optimistic, in that elite colleges have shown little interest in expanding their capacity to admit significantly larger numbers of poorer or minority students. He closes the book by reflecting on the GI Bill after WW2 and noting the differences with the Obama administration’s effort at improving graduation rates. He laments our individual orientation to higher education attainment when our history shows it can bring significant societal benefits.
I am torn on what to think about this. I do not disagree with much of what he argues, but must note that it is well known and understood. Elite systems function to preserve and replicate themselves and that certainly includes the US higher education system. Tough’s good intentions suggest that he would do better to focus his attention on the role of large public institutions, like the Big 10 schools, since they educate far more students than the Ivy and near Ivy schools. Increasing access to these schools, coupled with the junior colleges would be more effective than focusing on the ultra elites. I guess it would make for a less compelling crisis, however. The sections on UT Austin fit in this direction, but the Austin case is a bit particular. His emphasis on teaching freshman calculus and the more general need to actually educate new and needy students is spot on but conceptually distinct from getting into Harvard, Yales, Princeton, or Penn. He seems to have a running argument with the College Board that it is not really interested in improving access. I am sympathetic but it strikes me as less consequential to his overall story.
Net net - I am familiar with all of this. I am unsure what the book is adding to the discussion, even though it is fun to read. (I saw the author talk recently and he gives a good show too.)
I am torn on what to think about this. I do not disagree with much of what he argues, but must note that it is well known and understood. Elite systems function to preserve and replicate themselves and that certainly includes the US higher education system. Tough’s good intentions suggest that he would do better to focus his attention on the role of large public institutions, like the Big 10 schools, since they educate far more students than the Ivy and near Ivy schools. Increasing access to these schools, coupled with the junior colleges would be more effective than focusing on the ultra elites. I guess it would make for a less compelling crisis, however. The sections on UT Austin fit in this direction, but the Austin case is a bit particular. His emphasis on teaching freshman calculus and the more general need to actually educate new and needy students is spot on but conceptually distinct from getting into Harvard, Yales, Princeton, or Penn. He seems to have a running argument with the College Board that it is not really interested in improving access. I am sympathetic but it strikes me as less consequential to his overall story.
Net net - I am familiar with all of this. I am unsure what the book is adding to the discussion, even though it is fun to read. (I saw the author talk recently and he gives a good show too.)
May 26, 2021
First of all, there is a new version of this book: The Inequality Machine. I read the one that I linked to, i.e. THE YEARS THAT MATTER MOST," but I've also bought the more recent version, even if the changes are minimal.
I'll begin with some words of others. Go to the Amazon page for this book and read the glowing praise from many well respected individuals. I'm going to cut and paste some of those comments:
“Indelible and extraordinary, a powerful reckoning with just how far we’ve allowed reality to drift from our ideals.”
—Tara Westover, author of Educated: A Memoir, New York Times Book Review
“Gorgeously reported. Vividly written. Utterly lucid. Paul Tough jumps skillfully between deeply engaging personal narratives and the bigger truths of higher education. The way he tells the stories of these students, it’s impossible not to care about them and get angry on their behalf.”
—Ira Glass, host, This American Life
“A stunning piece of work. The Years That Matter Most is ostensibly about higher education, about the college experience—and on that level, it’s a completely absorbing narrative with some very surprising, trenchant analysis. But it’s also a lot more than that. It’s a book about class in America. It’s a book about social mobility. And it’s a devastating report card on the American dream. It’s just a very special book.”
—Michael Pollan, author of How to Change Your Mind (at WBUR’s CitySpace)
“What’s best about the book, a fruit of all the time Tough spent with his subjects, is that it humanizes the process of higher education. He has fascinating stories about efforts to remediate class disparities in higher education, some of which have succeeded and some of which may have made matters worse.”
—Louis Menand, The New Yorker
And there are many more. And then read some of the review comments from individuals who put up reviews on Amazon product page, many of which are anything but glowing. Why? I suspect that it is because, in some cases, Tough has touched a raw nerve, and some of those reviewers don't like it.
Well, I'll go with the professional reviewers, and I'll tell you this simply. The book is brilliant and revelatory. It can't be totally comprehensive, because there are simply too many issues in higher education. But it's enough. It tells you what's wrong with testing, for-profit colleges, the problems of trying to fit in if you come from a poor family, and many other things. And it also tells you about some things that work. There is a brilliant story of how the first course in calculus and how a professor at the University of Texas has made it his life mission to help students with that course ... and it becomes a highly personalized story about the professor and a Latina freshman who is struggling and how the professor and his head Teaching Assistant help that student. It is inspirational. It's not the only inspirational story either ... but they are mixed in with sad stories and maddening stories also ... which is probably an accurate description of what higher education is like these days.
I'll begin with some words of others. Go to the Amazon page for this book and read the glowing praise from many well respected individuals. I'm going to cut and paste some of those comments:
“Indelible and extraordinary, a powerful reckoning with just how far we’ve allowed reality to drift from our ideals.”
—Tara Westover, author of Educated: A Memoir, New York Times Book Review
“Gorgeously reported. Vividly written. Utterly lucid. Paul Tough jumps skillfully between deeply engaging personal narratives and the bigger truths of higher education. The way he tells the stories of these students, it’s impossible not to care about them and get angry on their behalf.”
—Ira Glass, host, This American Life
“A stunning piece of work. The Years That Matter Most is ostensibly about higher education, about the college experience—and on that level, it’s a completely absorbing narrative with some very surprising, trenchant analysis. But it’s also a lot more than that. It’s a book about class in America. It’s a book about social mobility. And it’s a devastating report card on the American dream. It’s just a very special book.”
—Michael Pollan, author of How to Change Your Mind (at WBUR’s CitySpace)
“What’s best about the book, a fruit of all the time Tough spent with his subjects, is that it humanizes the process of higher education. He has fascinating stories about efforts to remediate class disparities in higher education, some of which have succeeded and some of which may have made matters worse.”
—Louis Menand, The New Yorker
And there are many more. And then read some of the review comments from individuals who put up reviews on Amazon product page, many of which are anything but glowing. Why? I suspect that it is because, in some cases, Tough has touched a raw nerve, and some of those reviewers don't like it.
Well, I'll go with the professional reviewers, and I'll tell you this simply. The book is brilliant and revelatory. It can't be totally comprehensive, because there are simply too many issues in higher education. But it's enough. It tells you what's wrong with testing, for-profit colleges, the problems of trying to fit in if you come from a poor family, and many other things. And it also tells you about some things that work. There is a brilliant story of how the first course in calculus and how a professor at the University of Texas has made it his life mission to help students with that course ... and it becomes a highly personalized story about the professor and a Latina freshman who is struggling and how the professor and his head Teaching Assistant help that student. It is inspirational. It's not the only inspirational story either ... but they are mixed in with sad stories and maddening stories also ... which is probably an accurate description of what higher education is like these days.
October 5, 2019
This book is really more a collection of essays, some more effective than others. It would have benefited from a closer editing of the anecdotes and straw man arguments. Tough's previous work, How Children Succeed was enjoyable, though I recall it as being similarly Gladwellian in its fallacious reasoning and lack of logic.
I'm delighted Tough discussed the bottom line with university enrollment management (published in the NYT in 9/19), mentioned Tressie McMillan Cottom's book, Lower Ed (about the ways for-profit institutions and their analogs use the Gospel of Education --get a degree at any cost to have greater security-- only to saddle students with useless credentials and mountains of debt), Lauren Rivera's book, Pedigree (which demonstrates the ways elite professional services use subtle indicators to ensure they hire the most privileged from the most highly selective institutions), Khan Academy's usage data (guess who uses it most?), and College Board CEO Coleman's salary ($1.5M--for a non-profit?!) despite his successive failures but superb attention to PR.
Tough dropped the ball on the analysis regarding why people [like me] make "the irrational choice" to attend other than most highly selective schools that admit us. How about values? At the time, I wanted a university that shared my spiritual values (I was a Religious Studies and Spanish major), not a secular one that promised to transform me into an elitist, and did not want to be among the old moneyed class who would regard me as a lesser life form. I knew my worldly station and my mind and soul were elsewhere. I suppose I cannot expect Tough to comprehend that.
Tough also seems to believe everyone should get a college degree, even though he didn't. Everyone who thinks that should work like I did at a community college or a for-profit for a few months with the many students who struggle to read or perform basic arithmetic, experience psychic and physical pain at having to craft a few sentences and lack general wherewithal and the motivation to attend class or study groups or earn worthless degrees with mountains of debt.
He totally lost me with the discussion of Ivonne Martinez, the motivated and talented but economically marginalized Mexican American in Ch 10. Most universities don't possess the resources University of Texas-Austin engaged for Ivonne in Calculus: a renowned math pedagogue in Uri Treisman [whose work on ethnicity and study groups I cited in my book Engage!] and supremely talented Teaching Assistant [and native English speaker--another rarity!] in Erica Winterer who shepherded Ivonne away from the high level study group with other native Spanish speakers, implemented 2x week study groups without direct teaching but guiding pairs and groups through problem sets and then assembled an all female group--THEN evaded UT bureaucracy by granting an A to anyone earning an A on the final exam, erasing all previous F grades. Sounds like a Hollywood setup more than it does any of the universities I've worked for.
It may well be true that many more students could succeed were they assigned a personal tutor sitting at their elbow several hours a week. Is that what we're advocating for now? What happens later in the workforce? Will corporations, law firms, medical practices, the public sector be personal mentor these individuals in their careers? Egads. We need to recognize that everyone is not cut out for university. There are many ways of crafting a meaningful life with a sustainable wage that do not require a degree. For many people, it's just not worth it. The report from Third Way indicates that over 72% associates degree granting institutions and 17% bachelor's degree institutions "left the majority of their students earning less than $28,000—the typical salary of a high school graduate" and remember the average student loan debt is $32,731, to compound daily.
This collection of essays does not tell a cohesive story, except for the thread carried throughout exhorting educators and society at large to compensate for the stress, anxiety, and alienation that the less privileged have and do all we can to help them succeed. Individual characteristics and motivation are a result of systemic oppression and privilege, so they must be offset. We are meant to lower the standards and provide so many supports that all may reach them.
This is another installment in the Left's efforts to ensure equality of OUTCOMES, rather than merely equality of opportunity. It is this outlook that caused San Francisco to eliminate Algebra for everyone in 8th grade, since not everyone could do it so no one should access it. In this framework, it is insufficient that students can attend community colleges; all students must be able access to institutions regarded as elite. Better still, anything elite should be eliminated. Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain made low. A socialist future approaches.
I'm delighted Tough discussed the bottom line with university enrollment management (published in the NYT in 9/19), mentioned Tressie McMillan Cottom's book, Lower Ed (about the ways for-profit institutions and their analogs use the Gospel of Education --get a degree at any cost to have greater security-- only to saddle students with useless credentials and mountains of debt), Lauren Rivera's book, Pedigree (which demonstrates the ways elite professional services use subtle indicators to ensure they hire the most privileged from the most highly selective institutions), Khan Academy's usage data (guess who uses it most?), and College Board CEO Coleman's salary ($1.5M--for a non-profit?!) despite his successive failures but superb attention to PR.
Tough dropped the ball on the analysis regarding why people [like me] make "the irrational choice" to attend other than most highly selective schools that admit us. How about values? At the time, I wanted a university that shared my spiritual values (I was a Religious Studies and Spanish major), not a secular one that promised to transform me into an elitist, and did not want to be among the old moneyed class who would regard me as a lesser life form. I knew my worldly station and my mind and soul were elsewhere. I suppose I cannot expect Tough to comprehend that.
Tough also seems to believe everyone should get a college degree, even though he didn't. Everyone who thinks that should work like I did at a community college or a for-profit for a few months with the many students who struggle to read or perform basic arithmetic, experience psychic and physical pain at having to craft a few sentences and lack general wherewithal and the motivation to attend class or study groups or earn worthless degrees with mountains of debt.
He totally lost me with the discussion of Ivonne Martinez, the motivated and talented but economically marginalized Mexican American in Ch 10. Most universities don't possess the resources University of Texas-Austin engaged for Ivonne in Calculus: a renowned math pedagogue in Uri Treisman [whose work on ethnicity and study groups I cited in my book Engage!] and supremely talented Teaching Assistant [and native English speaker--another rarity!] in Erica Winterer who shepherded Ivonne away from the high level study group with other native Spanish speakers, implemented 2x week study groups without direct teaching but guiding pairs and groups through problem sets and then assembled an all female group--THEN evaded UT bureaucracy by granting an A to anyone earning an A on the final exam, erasing all previous F grades. Sounds like a Hollywood setup more than it does any of the universities I've worked for.
It may well be true that many more students could succeed were they assigned a personal tutor sitting at their elbow several hours a week. Is that what we're advocating for now? What happens later in the workforce? Will corporations, law firms, medical practices, the public sector be personal mentor these individuals in their careers? Egads. We need to recognize that everyone is not cut out for university. There are many ways of crafting a meaningful life with a sustainable wage that do not require a degree. For many people, it's just not worth it. The report from Third Way indicates that over 72% associates degree granting institutions and 17% bachelor's degree institutions "left the majority of their students earning less than $28,000—the typical salary of a high school graduate" and remember the average student loan debt is $32,731, to compound daily.
This collection of essays does not tell a cohesive story, except for the thread carried throughout exhorting educators and society at large to compensate for the stress, anxiety, and alienation that the less privileged have and do all we can to help them succeed. Individual characteristics and motivation are a result of systemic oppression and privilege, so they must be offset. We are meant to lower the standards and provide so many supports that all may reach them.
This is another installment in the Left's efforts to ensure equality of OUTCOMES, rather than merely equality of opportunity. It is this outlook that caused San Francisco to eliminate Algebra for everyone in 8th grade, since not everyone could do it so no one should access it. In this framework, it is insufficient that students can attend community colleges; all students must be able access to institutions regarded as elite. Better still, anything elite should be eliminated. Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain made low. A socialist future approaches.
October 4, 2019
I have worked in this field for 20 years and not only does Tough get it, he sees far beyond most of us who can’t see beyond our trenches. He is a evocative writer who will make you desperately care about where a girl from the Bronx gets into college. He does an overview of educational policy that has led us to this perilous place that made so many things clear that weren’t before I read this book.
A mark of a great book is knowing the right people to talk to. By highlighting the work of Angel and Jon, he demonstrates his deep understanding of the issues in admissions.
I thought the highlight would be the chapters that feature friends of mine, but the final 100 pages, which is a surprisingly fascinating indictment of how calculus is taught in college is fantastic. I know, I know but trust me: it’s the most riveting 100 pages you will read.
The ending is a call to arms, and asks what kind of nation do we want to be? It’s as powerful as anything I’ve ever read.
I’ve read a lot of great books this year but nothing compares to this. It is the best book of the year.
A mark of a great book is knowing the right people to talk to. By highlighting the work of Angel and Jon, he demonstrates his deep understanding of the issues in admissions.
I thought the highlight would be the chapters that feature friends of mine, but the final 100 pages, which is a surprisingly fascinating indictment of how calculus is taught in college is fantastic. I know, I know but trust me: it’s the most riveting 100 pages you will read.
The ending is a call to arms, and asks what kind of nation do we want to be? It’s as powerful as anything I’ve ever read.
I’ve read a lot of great books this year but nothing compares to this. It is the best book of the year.
September 2, 2019
absolutely outstanding. breaks down some important information about our higher education system and features some truly incredible anecdotes. I teared up towards the end. My higher ed friends MUST read this book, especially because a lot of it is taking a look our class- many of the interviewees in this book were in college from 2013-2017. It is relevant information for those of us taking on various roles in higher education.
February 10, 2020
Wow. This was moving and thought-provoking and so well written. I teared up more than once as I heard about some of the first generation or lower income students who succeeded when supported by caring professors. (Three cheers for University of Texas). I highly recommend the audio read by Tough himself.
September 23, 2019
Saw this book on Bill Gates' list of books he was interested in reading. I have one son in college, another in his senior year of high school, and a freshman in high school. As a college senior many years ago, I worked in the admissions office of my college, and thought I had a pretty good idea of how the admissions process worked.
Not only do I have a better understanding of the mechanics of college admissions, I have a much greater appreciation for the inequity inherent in higher education. We do ourselves no favors when we deny opportunity to students based solely on their standardized scores - we're depriving ourselves of the next generation of doctors, policy makers, leaders, entrepreneurs whose experiences would enrich the work they do and benefit everyone.
I'm grateful for Tough's book; I have a much different appreciation of the role of a college education in social mobility - and the many obstacles students from less advantaged backgrounds face when they attempt to secure that mobility. Highly recommended.
Not only do I have a better understanding of the mechanics of college admissions, I have a much greater appreciation for the inequity inherent in higher education. We do ourselves no favors when we deny opportunity to students based solely on their standardized scores - we're depriving ourselves of the next generation of doctors, policy makers, leaders, entrepreneurs whose experiences would enrich the work they do and benefit everyone.
I'm grateful for Tough's book; I have a much different appreciation of the role of a college education in social mobility - and the many obstacles students from less advantaged backgrounds face when they attempt to secure that mobility. Highly recommended.
January 14, 2020
A really galvanizing, well written work on the landscape of higher ed and its inaccessibility for millions of Americans.
It’s a particularly great survey work if you are interested in a brief history and the current state of college access, public higher ed, the student loan crisis, STEM persistence, issues with the AP curriculum and higher education as a stepping stone to social mobility. The case studies and personal narratives make this book sing!
I normally don’t write reviews, so this is just being tapped out on an Amtrak (apologies for the dryness), but if you are a voter, a parent, a student, a person in the world, read this book to better understand the extreme disparities across a piece of the educational spectrum. Plus, it features a wonderful bibliography that can launch you into some of the great current research out there.
It’s a particularly great survey work if you are interested in a brief history and the current state of college access, public higher ed, the student loan crisis, STEM persistence, issues with the AP curriculum and higher education as a stepping stone to social mobility. The case studies and personal narratives make this book sing!
I normally don’t write reviews, so this is just being tapped out on an Amtrak (apologies for the dryness), but if you are a voter, a parent, a student, a person in the world, read this book to better understand the extreme disparities across a piece of the educational spectrum. Plus, it features a wonderful bibliography that can launch you into some of the great current research out there.
November 7, 2019
It is hard to summarize how much I admire this book. It has the sickest burns of the College Board and a quote from David Coleman that has now enraged me for weeks, the writing is superb and uses detail in just the right ways so I really felt like I got to know people, and I CRIED ACTUAL TEARS when a student passed her calc exam and her very amazing and dedicated professor called her on the phone to congratulate her. I'm not sure what the book is like if you don't work in higher ed or know much about higher ed to start with, but essentially, go: read this book. (Also the part about lacrosse bros getting all consulting and banking jobs is....eye opening).
February 17, 2020
The best non-fiction book I've read in a long time. A must-read, and not only for privileged parents going through the admissions process (but especially for privileged parents going through the admissions process). This is for everyone who cares about fairness and access and structural inequities and who enjoys hating the living shit out of the College Board which is evil and you should TOTALLY hate the living shit out of the College Board.
It is also a really good read. Not too dense with stats and facts (they're really well-deployed but you don't, like, DROWN in them) and with characters you truly care about.
It is also a really good read. Not too dense with stats and facts (they're really well-deployed but you don't, like, DROWN in them) and with characters you truly care about.
May 3, 2020
I thought because I was in education, I understood it. I did not. I love the student stories in this book. I love how Mr. Tough writes these interactions. He does so in a way that the reader feels like she is sitting in on the interviews, too. I understand so many more things about teaching now, about my students, about my own college experiences, about the PURPOSE of a college education. This book is perfect for those who have a college degree and those who don’t. Both groups of people will take life changing insights away.
October 27, 2019
This is a great read. Albeit I am already interested in the price and importance of college, I found the data concerning Ivy League vs state schools, ACT/SAT test prep, first generation and minority student achievement, and admissions procedures utterly fascinating. There is so much to think and talk about that I’d consider this nonfiction book a perfect book club read. The admissions strategy alone makes this one of my favorites of the year.
January 30, 2020
Really interesting, well-written book about inequality and how our educational institutions perpetuate it, along with some ways that people are succeeding in making things better. Many engaging stories about students, faculty and other educators. Highly recommend (even if you don't have a kid heading to college soon!).
January 25, 2021
Highly highly recommend to those starting to doubt the benevolence of the almighty universities, as tools of social mobility and symbols of meritocracy. Truly opened my eyes and gave me the language to describe why college board is bad for students and how we should be demanding our colleges and universities and government to do better for its students and for the future of our people.
August 6, 2023
I've always been interested in college education and standardized test scores, I suppose because I noted while growing up in a wealthy town that both seemed to define your worth. Going to college wasn't optional; it was expected. It was town gossip if you didn't go or went to a "low-achievers'" college (everyone knew what those were). You could see the judgment on people's faces when they would ask you where you were applying to college--a fallen face and an "oh" if you weren't going anywhere particularly great, and an approving "wow, you must be smart" if you were. Grades were important, but the standardized test was the measure that torpedoed students' ambitions of going to Yale instead of University of Connecticut, or could eke high-scoring but lazy students a nice scholarship somewhere. College was simply what you did.
Meanwhile, I knew someone well--I'll call him Carlos--born and raised in Queens who enrolled at Hunter as a first-generation college student and promptly flunked out. His working-class family shrugged. Get a job so you can contribute to rent, or we're kicking you out, they said. Want to go back to college for a second go? Figure the financing out yourself, not our problem.
Our worlds couldn't have been more different. I was a late-blooming student who had failing grades freshman and sophomore year before I realized maybe bothering to do homework might be a good idea. Carlos was considered a decent student in the NYC public school system. It took him several years to get an associate's degree; I graduated on time.
Who failed?
Per The Inequality Machine, society did. The New York City public school system failed. Hunter College failed. Our politicians failed. To Carlos's credit, he persevered and got his degree; most students in his situation simply give up, saddled with student loans. But he was never set up for success to begin with--was it any surprise he was in over his head at Hunter? Was it his fault he was asked to write a paper and didn't know how, because you didn't really need to know how to do that to graduate from the New York City public schools as a poor Hispanic kid? Was it his fault navigating the student services for support felt as dystopian and bureaucratic as the DMV? I mean, you had to know student support services existed to begin with.
The Inequality Machine, a surprisingly engagingly-written book that deftly mixes facts with the personal stories of many poor and minority students, explores inequity in the United States' higher education system on multiple levels. Firstly, the disparity in who gets a degree vs. not creates inequity, because statistically speaking, it's very hard to earn a middle-class income on a high school diploma. Who even applies to a college represents inequity, because poor high-achieving students are more likely to apply to colleges that their less academically oriented peers of similar income apply to, instead of schools matching their academic caliber. Who gets in to a college represents inequity, because household income tracks highly with SAT scores (chicken-or-the-egg problem). Who stays and succeeds at college is also representative of inequity, because poor students are often ill-prepared from substandard K-12 schooling and feel out-of-place culturally.
Inequity in higher education is a problem that simply compounds itself. And, Tough notes, colleges aren't exactly incentivized to ameliorate the issue. Why admit the high-achieving poor kid when you could admit a just-okay student who will pay full tuition? Why not offer merit aid to high-scoring wealthy kids to boost your average admitted students' SAT score, and thereby increase your college ranking? While higher education has plenty of well-intentioned people who really want to help, ultimately the institutions are handcuffed to managing a ballooning budget and jockeying for the best possible US News Best Colleges ranking. There are too many perverse incentives, and it shows with how stubbornly unchanged student bodies are.
The Inequality Machine highlights not just real issues, but also the various interventions that have succeeded or catastrophically failed, and why. Overall, even the well-intentioned ways colleges have tried to be more equitable don't really solve the problem. Attempts to get high-achieving low-income students to apply to more selective schools is actually really difficult and has resisted various forms of remediation. Arguably, as echoed by many of the people Tough interviews, students often don't believe they're capable of succeeding, or, even more often, don't see themselves fitting in culturally at colleges where they see so few poor or minority people like them. Of the black students at highly selective colleges, they're often high-income and frequently the children of African immigrants, a fact not unnoticed and in fact deeply alienating to poor black students. Poor minority students find themselves statistical anomalies at selective colleges.
What does work? Tough believes it's intensive support, academically and psychologically. Intervention is important. Poor students who didn't have the luxury of a good K-12 education may find themselves overwhelmed, ill-prepared or unable to know how to study effectively. Create small academic support groups. Remind them it's okay to struggle. Intentionally connect them to a peer community. Drop the SAT requirement; high school GPA is a better predictor of performance than SAT scores are, and easily gamed.
Overall, I think Tough gives a pretty exhaustive review of the state of higher education, and he does it in a very engaging way. I actually was fully expecting this book to be rather textbook-like and dry, but it was a quick, interesting read.
I do think the book had some misses, though. For one, he was extremely focused on highly-selective colleges. Why, he repeatedly explored, are there so few poor students at Princeton? Who cares about Princeton? Who cares about highly-selective colleges at all? I'm not saying Princeton should have practically no poor black students, but what about mid-tier colleges? It's a line of thinking I and so many of my peers subscribed to in high school--the more prestigious the college, the better. I couldn't name where any of my colleagues went to college, or even if they went at all.
And I don't care. College gets your foot in the door. You want students to go to a college that prepares them well, but does selectivity matter or rigor? I care more about rigor. Highly-selective colleges are, definitionally, a luxury resource; most people won't go to one, because that's kind of the point. When trying to tackle the higher education inequity problem, you will get way more bang for your buck improving the state of things at mid-tier colleges that accept lots of people. In Tough's defense, he does actually mention this line of thought, but it's a comparative drive-by mention.
Additionally, he barely really talked about the impact on major. I graduated with a completely useless degree (psychology). Many of my peers in the College of Arts & Sciences did as well. Back then, I had a romantic view of college--study what you love! As much as many academics would love to argue otherwise, college is clearly not actually valued by society as a liberal arts education to expand your mind--college in the 21st century is job training, point blank. We do no one any good by pretending otherwise. My father bitterly fought with me over my curriculum choices, arguing I should study something more practical. I'll concede; he was right. Luckily, I was able to get some interviews to "good" jobs by way of connections, and my major didn't matter in the end, but what would I have done if my background was less fortunate? Countless students got suckered by the "study what you love" mantra; it wasn't just me. Where you go to college doesn't particularly matter, but what you study sure does. I wouldn't be surprised if poor students take up STEM degrees far less often than wealthy students.
Finally, I disagree with Tough's premise that college should be for everyone, and we should increase college graduation rates in a vacuum. I disagree with this because of my prior-stated belief that college is actually job training. I don't have anything against art history, but if the point of college is to get a job you can support yourself with after, do we need more? Or should our focus be on giving people social mobility through trade schools, universities, on-the-job training and otherwise? Anyone who wants to go to college and do the work should have the opportunity to do so, but that shouldn't be the only path.
Meanwhile, I knew someone well--I'll call him Carlos--born and raised in Queens who enrolled at Hunter as a first-generation college student and promptly flunked out. His working-class family shrugged. Get a job so you can contribute to rent, or we're kicking you out, they said. Want to go back to college for a second go? Figure the financing out yourself, not our problem.
Our worlds couldn't have been more different. I was a late-blooming student who had failing grades freshman and sophomore year before I realized maybe bothering to do homework might be a good idea. Carlos was considered a decent student in the NYC public school system. It took him several years to get an associate's degree; I graduated on time.
Who failed?
Per The Inequality Machine, society did. The New York City public school system failed. Hunter College failed. Our politicians failed. To Carlos's credit, he persevered and got his degree; most students in his situation simply give up, saddled with student loans. But he was never set up for success to begin with--was it any surprise he was in over his head at Hunter? Was it his fault he was asked to write a paper and didn't know how, because you didn't really need to know how to do that to graduate from the New York City public schools as a poor Hispanic kid? Was it his fault navigating the student services for support felt as dystopian and bureaucratic as the DMV? I mean, you had to know student support services existed to begin with.
The Inequality Machine, a surprisingly engagingly-written book that deftly mixes facts with the personal stories of many poor and minority students, explores inequity in the United States' higher education system on multiple levels. Firstly, the disparity in who gets a degree vs. not creates inequity, because statistically speaking, it's very hard to earn a middle-class income on a high school diploma. Who even applies to a college represents inequity, because poor high-achieving students are more likely to apply to colleges that their less academically oriented peers of similar income apply to, instead of schools matching their academic caliber. Who gets in to a college represents inequity, because household income tracks highly with SAT scores (chicken-or-the-egg problem). Who stays and succeeds at college is also representative of inequity, because poor students are often ill-prepared from substandard K-12 schooling and feel out-of-place culturally.
Inequity in higher education is a problem that simply compounds itself. And, Tough notes, colleges aren't exactly incentivized to ameliorate the issue. Why admit the high-achieving poor kid when you could admit a just-okay student who will pay full tuition? Why not offer merit aid to high-scoring wealthy kids to boost your average admitted students' SAT score, and thereby increase your college ranking? While higher education has plenty of well-intentioned people who really want to help, ultimately the institutions are handcuffed to managing a ballooning budget and jockeying for the best possible US News Best Colleges ranking. There are too many perverse incentives, and it shows with how stubbornly unchanged student bodies are.
The Inequality Machine highlights not just real issues, but also the various interventions that have succeeded or catastrophically failed, and why. Overall, even the well-intentioned ways colleges have tried to be more equitable don't really solve the problem. Attempts to get high-achieving low-income students to apply to more selective schools is actually really difficult and has resisted various forms of remediation. Arguably, as echoed by many of the people Tough interviews, students often don't believe they're capable of succeeding, or, even more often, don't see themselves fitting in culturally at colleges where they see so few poor or minority people like them. Of the black students at highly selective colleges, they're often high-income and frequently the children of African immigrants, a fact not unnoticed and in fact deeply alienating to poor black students. Poor minority students find themselves statistical anomalies at selective colleges.
What does work? Tough believes it's intensive support, academically and psychologically. Intervention is important. Poor students who didn't have the luxury of a good K-12 education may find themselves overwhelmed, ill-prepared or unable to know how to study effectively. Create small academic support groups. Remind them it's okay to struggle. Intentionally connect them to a peer community. Drop the SAT requirement; high school GPA is a better predictor of performance than SAT scores are, and easily gamed.
Overall, I think Tough gives a pretty exhaustive review of the state of higher education, and he does it in a very engaging way. I actually was fully expecting this book to be rather textbook-like and dry, but it was a quick, interesting read.
I do think the book had some misses, though. For one, he was extremely focused on highly-selective colleges. Why, he repeatedly explored, are there so few poor students at Princeton? Who cares about Princeton? Who cares about highly-selective colleges at all? I'm not saying Princeton should have practically no poor black students, but what about mid-tier colleges? It's a line of thinking I and so many of my peers subscribed to in high school--the more prestigious the college, the better. I couldn't name where any of my colleagues went to college, or even if they went at all.
And I don't care. College gets your foot in the door. You want students to go to a college that prepares them well, but does selectivity matter or rigor? I care more about rigor. Highly-selective colleges are, definitionally, a luxury resource; most people won't go to one, because that's kind of the point. When trying to tackle the higher education inequity problem, you will get way more bang for your buck improving the state of things at mid-tier colleges that accept lots of people. In Tough's defense, he does actually mention this line of thought, but it's a comparative drive-by mention.
Additionally, he barely really talked about the impact on major. I graduated with a completely useless degree (psychology). Many of my peers in the College of Arts & Sciences did as well. Back then, I had a romantic view of college--study what you love! As much as many academics would love to argue otherwise, college is clearly not actually valued by society as a liberal arts education to expand your mind--college in the 21st century is job training, point blank. We do no one any good by pretending otherwise. My father bitterly fought with me over my curriculum choices, arguing I should study something more practical. I'll concede; he was right. Luckily, I was able to get some interviews to "good" jobs by way of connections, and my major didn't matter in the end, but what would I have done if my background was less fortunate? Countless students got suckered by the "study what you love" mantra; it wasn't just me. Where you go to college doesn't particularly matter, but what you study sure does. I wouldn't be surprised if poor students take up STEM degrees far less often than wealthy students.
Finally, I disagree with Tough's premise that college should be for everyone, and we should increase college graduation rates in a vacuum. I disagree with this because of my prior-stated belief that college is actually job training. I don't have anything against art history, but if the point of college is to get a job you can support yourself with after, do we need more? Or should our focus be on giving people social mobility through trade schools, universities, on-the-job training and otherwise? Anyone who wants to go to college and do the work should have the opportunity to do so, but that shouldn't be the only path.
March 5, 2021
everyone needs to read this book!!! especially if you are like me and constantly wondering why you're in college and if it's even "worth it". this book has completely upended the way I look at college admissions and CollegeBoard (i hate it more than before). there is such a need in the US to restructure the way we treat students and the way we view public education! felt disheartened and hopeful while reading this...thanks and gig em
February 12, 2020
i highly recommend this to anyone interested in societal systems and influence, and especially anyone that advocates for education. this is not a book about how to get into university, but the most well-researched analysis of the american dream i've ever read - which is to say, very very interesting!
October 5, 2019
It's really easy to answer the question of the value of college from a single lens today, whether you are directly using your education or not, the kind of profession you are in, the environment around you and your culture.
What Paul Tough did here that I found very interesting was looking at college from all the different angles and views. From the college admissions process, to standardized tests, to the rich who apply to college, the poor and the data on studies in between (including some cool historical data).
Constantly flipping through these different narratives gave a nice broad picture of the US education system + it was very fun and engaging to read.
Didn't know about this book until I saw Rick Klau's review on Goodreads so thanks for that.
What Paul Tough did here that I found very interesting was looking at college from all the different angles and views. From the college admissions process, to standardized tests, to the rich who apply to college, the poor and the data on studies in between (including some cool historical data).
Constantly flipping through these different narratives gave a nice broad picture of the US education system + it was very fun and engaging to read.
Didn't know about this book until I saw Rick Klau's review on Goodreads so thanks for that.
November 13, 2019
A powerful argument for changing not only how students get into college and who goes to college but also what happens once they are there. With the demise of small regional liberal arts colleges, do the elites like Princeton and Dartmouth and others have a public purpose that they're just not undertaking?
December 13, 2019
A great report on the state of higher education. As someone who works in higher ed, as an advisor and who has worked in admissions, this book is spot on. I found it insightful, well-researched and well-written. A must for those who work in higher ed, for those who are looking to send their kids to college and anyone who has wondered was has happened in that world in the last 20 years.
September 29, 2019
This was a fascinating, infuriating, and heartening read. We need to change the way we are currently doing college, starting with those stupid US News rankings and moving on to finding a way to fund it for everyone who wants and needs it.
October 14, 2019
Absolutely brilliant. Loved the writing and undoubtedly chuckled at some sassy tones in the dissemination of the research done into higher education.
Need to do another skim through to outline my favorite quotes since I read a library copy.
Need to do another skim through to outline my favorite quotes since I read a library copy.
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December 12, 2019This book is highly depressing; I hope that it leads to some deep changes in higher education because the system we have now is a mess. In the meantime I will hope to forget as much as I can before my children are applying. But I loved the individual stories he tells here.
December 18, 2019
A tough look at the inequality that exists in our current college admitting system.
November 23, 2019
The best book I have ever read about higher education, social mobility, and equity. Should be required reading for anyone interested in any of these topics.
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