
Paying the Price
College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American Dream
Author: Sara Goldrick-Rab
Narrator: Vanessa Daniels
Unabridged: 9 hr 46 min
Format: Digital Audiobook Download
Publisher: Tantor Media
Published: 04/18/2017
Categories: Nonfiction, Business & Economics, Education, Finance
Synopsis
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 twenty 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.

