Paying the Price by Sara Goldrick-Rab
If you are a young person, and you work hard enough, you can get a college degree and set yourself on the path to a good life, right? Not necessarily, says Sara Goldrick-Rab, and with Paying the Price, she shows in damning detail exactly why. Quite simply, college is far too expensive for many people today, and the confusing mix of federal, state, institutional, and private financial aid leaves countless students without the resources they need to pay for it. Drawing on an unprecedented study of 3,000 young adults who entered public colleges and universities in Wisconsin in 2008 with the support of federal aid and Pell Grants, Goldrick-Rab reveals the devastating effect of these shortfalls. Half the students in the study left college without a degree, while less than 20 percent finished within five years. The cause of their problems, time and again, was lack of money. Unable to afford tuition, books, and living expenses, they worked too many hours at outside jobs, dropped classes, took time off to save money, and even went without adequate food or housing. In many heartbreaking cases, they simply left school—not with a degree, but with crippling debt. Goldrick-Rab combines that shocking data with devastating stories of six individual students, whose struggles make clear the horrifying human and financial costs of our convoluted financial aid policies. America can fix this problem. In the final section of the book, Goldrick-Rab offers a range of possible solutions, from technical improvements to the financial aid application process, to a bold, public sector–focused “first degree free” program. What’s not an option, this powerful book shows, is doing nothing, and continuing to crush the college dreams of a generation of young people.Sara Goldrick-Rab is the coeditor of Rethinking Financial Aid: Charting a New Path to College Affordability and has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post on education issues. She has received the American Educational Research Association's Early Career Award, and her work has been featured in the Atlantic, Slate, and NPR. She is a well-known influence on the creation of both federal and state higher education legislation, having developed the Wisconsin HOPE Lab, the nation's first research laboratory aimed at making college accessible. Dr. Goldrick-Rab is a Temple University professor of higher education policy and sociology.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780226527147 |
| ISBN 10 | 022652714X |
| Title | Paying the Price |
| Author | Sara Goldrick-Rab |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | The University of Chicago Press |
| Year published | 2017-07-24 |
| Number of pages | 368 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |