Research Professor Jodie Adams Kirshner has received two grants, one from the Kresge Foundation and another from Lumina Foundation. Kirshner will use this funding to turn her recent research findings, which have been supported by ECMC Foundation, into a book manuscript about America’s collapsing commitment to higher education as a ladder of opportunity for all. It will center around a group of low-income African American and Latino students and their families, whose profoundly affecting stories can serve to educate the broader public about the individual, local, state, and national costs associated with persistent racial inequalities in higher education. The book, aimed towards a general readership, will explain more complex aspects of the college-enrollment and persistence landscape and push readers to confront the harmful consequences of both rising student debt and pervasive inequality in American higher education, their impact on our democracy and economy, and the urgent need for more ambitious, next-stage solutions to educate more Americans with new approaches and renewed commitment.
