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Bankers in the Ivory Tower: The Troubling Rise of Financiers in US Higher Education
Exposes the intimate relationship between big finance and higher education inequality in America.
Elite colleges have long played a crucial role in maintaining social and class status in America while public universities have offered a major stepping-stone to new economic opportunities. However, as Charlie Eaton reveals in Bankers in the Ivory Tower , finance has played a central role in the widening inequality in recent decades, both in American higher education and in American society at large.
With federal and state funding falling short, the US higher education system has become increasingly dependent on financial markets and the financiers that mediate them. Beginning in the 1980s, the government, colleges, students, and their families took on multiple new roles as financial investors, borrowers, and brokers. The turn to finance, however, has yielded wildly unequal results. At the top, ties to Wall Street help the most elite private schools achieve the greatest endowment growth through hedge fund investments and the support of wealthy donors. At the bottom, takeovers by private equity transform for-profit colleges into predatory organizations that leave disadvantaged students with massive loan debt and few educational benefits. And in the middle, public universities are squeezed between incentives to increase tuition and pressures to maintain access and affordability. Eaton chronicles these transformations, making clear for the first time just how tight the links are between powerful financiers and America’s unequal system of higher education.
Elite colleges have long played a crucial role in maintaining social and class status in America while public universities have offered a major stepping-stone to new economic opportunities. However, as Charlie Eaton reveals in Bankers in the Ivory Tower , finance has played a central role in the widening inequality in recent decades, both in American higher education and in American society at large.
With federal and state funding falling short, the US higher education system has become increasingly dependent on financial markets and the financiers that mediate them. Beginning in the 1980s, the government, colleges, students, and their families took on multiple new roles as financial investors, borrowers, and brokers. The turn to finance, however, has yielded wildly unequal results. At the top, ties to Wall Street help the most elite private schools achieve the greatest endowment growth through hedge fund investments and the support of wealthy donors. At the bottom, takeovers by private equity transform for-profit colleges into predatory organizations that leave disadvantaged students with massive loan debt and few educational benefits. And in the middle, public universities are squeezed between incentives to increase tuition and pressures to maintain access and affordability. Eaton chronicles these transformations, making clear for the first time just how tight the links are between powerful financiers and America’s unequal system of higher education.
232 pages, Hardcover
Published February 25, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 30, 2024
I have plenty of thoughts on this, but I will leave one here. We may very well be seeing history unfold itself around us as institutions of higher learning cease to become the vehicles of social mobility they once were. Most of history has occurred without these in large numbers, so I am curious if this time period (say, 1800 - 2050) as a unique one ushering in a new era where education is played out in much different arenas. Thanks, bankers. /s
May 16, 2025
connected the dots on a lot of economic concepts but has a boring/overwhelming narrative
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews