Poison Ivy

How Elite Colleges Divide Us

De: Evan Mandery

Narrado por: Brian Holden

The front-page news and the trials that followed Operation Varsity Blues were just the tip of the iceberg. Poison Ivy tells the bigger, seedier story of how elite colleges create paths to admission available only to the wealthy, despite rhetoric to the contrary. Evan Mandery reveals how tacit agreements between exclusive "Ivy-plus" schools and white affluent suburbs create widespread de facto segregation. And as a college degree continues to be the surest route to upward mobility, the inequality bred in our broken higher education system is now a principal driver of skyrocketing income inequality everywhere.

Mandery—a professor at a public college that serves low- and middle-income students—contrasts the lip service paid to "opportunity" by so many elite colleges and universities with schools that actually walk the walk. Weaving in shocking data and captivating interviews with students and administrators alike, Poison Ivy also synthesizes fascinating insider information on everything from how students are evaluated, unfair tax breaks, and questionable fundraising practices to suburban rituals, testing, tutoring, tuition schemes, and more. This bold, provocative indictment of America's elite colleges shows us what's at stake in a faulty system—and what will be possible if we muster the collective will to transform it.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2022 Evan Mandery (P)2024 Tantor Media

Identifies a real issue in higher education in the United States.

This was a very compelling, well written and well researched commentary on the issues of higher education in the United States and how Ivy league institutions are perpetuating socio-economic inequality through their maintenance of massive endowments, their preferential admission of legacy and sports candidates who do not necessarily demonstrate academic rigour. This is no doubt a serious problem and I commend the author for expounding on it. The book is very radical and offers some perspectives that come across as more activist than intellectual. Particularly, I’m not convinced that suggestions of merit being a myth are helpful (even if they might be true). Despite some areas where I disagree with the author - perhaps due to the radical socialist perspective of some of his views - I enjoyed the book and would recommend it to anyone who is interested in why elite institutions are arguably doing more harm than good.