"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. "--