EP 604  Colleges Today at the Center of the Political Divide

In your mind have you placed the fracturing of America’s politics at the entrance way to America’s college system? It takes some mental gymnastics to get there but if you trace the trajectory of American higher education from the postwar boom of the GI bill after World War II and the optimism for all to today’s divisiveness, while one group goes into crippling debt to obtain a credential that society places a high value on while those who lack a degree often distrust and even revile them, but have no viable path to a hopeful future( search deaths of despair). A de industrialized America has shattered their hopes to attain The American Dream. The worlds and fortunes of these groups seem miles apart and have been exacerbated by politicians taking advantage of the divides to discount the value of a degree and the expertise it often represents. Welcome to America 2022. Will Bunch, a Pulitzer Prize winner, details this trajectory and its implications in his new book ‘After the Ivory Tower Falls’. He joins us to discuss the issues and solutions.

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