The Years That Matter Most : How College Makes or Breaks Us

The Years That Matter Most
Author(s): Paul Tough

Indelible and extraordinary.Tara Westover, author of Educated: A Memoir, New York Times Book Review
A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice

The best-selling author ofHow Children Succeedreturns with a powerful, mind-changing inquiry into higher education in the United States

Does college still work? Is the system designed just to protect the privileged and leave everyone else behind? Or can a college education today provide real opportunity to young Americans seeking to improve their station in life?

The Years That Matter Most tells the stories of students trying to find their way, with hope, joy, and frustration, through the application process and into college. Drawing on new research, the book reveals how the landscape of higher education has shifted in recent decades and exposes the hidden truths of how the system works and whom it works for. And it introduces us to the people who really make higher education go: admissions directors trying to balance the class and balance the budget, College Board officials scrambling to defend the SAT in the face of mounting evidence that it favors the wealthy, researchers working to unlock the mysteries of the college-student brain, and educators trying to transform potential dropouts into successful graduates.

With insight, humor, and passion, Paul Tough takes readers on a journey from Ivy League seminar rooms to community college welding shops, from giant public flagship universities to tiny experimental storefront colleges. Whether you are facing your own decision about college or simply care about the American promise of social mobility, The Years That Matter Most will change the way you thinknot just about higher education, but about the nation itself.

Review(s):
Indelible and extraordinary, a powerful reckoning with just how far weve allowed reality to drift from our ideals.Tara Westover, author ofEducated: A Memoir,New York Times Book Review Gorgeously reported. Vividly written. Utterly lucid. Paul Tough jumps skillfully between deeply engaging personal narratives and the bigger truths of higher education. The way he tells the stories of these students, its impossible not to care about them and get angry on their behalf.Ira Glass, host, This American Life A stunning piece of work.The Years That Matter Mostis ostensibly about higher education, about the college experienceand on that level, its a completely absorbing narrative with some very surprising, trenchant analysis. But its also a lot more than that. Its a book about class in America. Its a book about social mobility. And its a devastating report card on the American dream. Its just a very special book.Michael Pollan, author ofHow to Change Your Mind(at WBURs CitySpace) Ive been begging everyone I know to read this book . . . Its an utterly absorbing, utterly enlightening, utterly important book about classism in American higher education and the myth of meritocracy.Cheryl Strayed, author ofWild, in By the Book,New York Times Book Review [Toughs] urgent account combines cogent data and artful storytelling to show how higher education has veered from its meritocratic ideals to exacerbate societys inequality.New York Times Book Review, Editors Choice Cant recommend this book highly enough. Paul Tough lights a fuse that blows up every piety that American higher educationand indeed, the American upper classtells itself about elite colleges.Dana Goldstein,New York Times(via Twitter) Whats best about the book, a fruit of all the time Tough spent with his subjects, is that it humanizes the process of higher education. He has fascinating stories about efforts to remediate class disparities in higher education, some of which have succeeded and some of which may have made matters worse.Louis Menand,The New Yorker A complex, essential book that asks an urgent question: Is our current higher education system designed to protect the privileged and leave everyone else behind? A fascinating, troubling read.Heidi Stevens, Chicago Tribune Paul Toughs important new book on the broken promises of higher education begins with a chapter that he succeeds in making as suspenseful as the prologue of any serial-killer novel and as heart-rending as the climax of an epic romance . . . Among his books many vital contributions are its portraits of schools and programs that model a better way.Frank Bruni,New York Times A comprehensive, moving account of the inequalities that block many poor, minority and first-generation students from realizing the benefits of a college education. Michael T. Nietzel,Forbes Paul Toughs daringThe Years That Matter Mostforces us to unfold the suffering built into the creases of American higher education. It refuses to let us forget about the bodies and lives of real students. It should be necessary readi



ISBN:9780544944480