Includes bibliographical references and index

Creating Degrees of Inequality -- Two Diminishing Returns: The Transformation of Federal Student Aid Over Time -- "Unscrupulous Profiteers": The Struggle to Reform the For-Profit Colleges -- From Pioneer to Slacker: The Rise and Decline of American Public Higher Education -- Opportune Moments: Reform on the Agenda -- How Money Talks: Political Influence in the Struggle to Regulate the For-Profits -- Restoring the Public Purposes of Higher Education

"America's higher education system is failing its students. In the space of a generation, we have gone from being the best-educated society in the world to one in which a college degree benefits only to those in the top income brackets. In Degrees of Inequality, acclaimed political scientist Suzanne Mettler explains why the system has gone so horribly wrong and why the American Dream is increasingly out of reach for so many. In her eye-opening account, Mettler illuminates how political partisanship has overshadowed America's commitment to equal access to higher education. As politicians capitulate to corporate interests, owners of for-profit colleges benefit, but many of their students gain little aside from massive student loan debt. Meanwhile the nation's public universities have shifted the burden of rising costs onto students, and skyrocketing tuition fees make it increasingly difficult for students to finish their degrees. A comprehensive examination of how politicians have failed our students and our highest ideals as a nation, Degrees of Inequality is clarion call for education reform. "-- Provided by publisher