RR4 McMillan Cottom: The Education Gospel

In The Education Gospel, Tressie McMillan Cottom discusses her firsthand experience working at for-profit colleges, and how that has influenced her present-day view on for-profit education as a sociologist. McMillan Cottom describes how when advising students at the for-profit schools, she always felt pressure to “close the deal” even for students who really couldn’t afford to. Students were treated more like business transactions, because for-profit colleges profit from socioeconomic inequality. She has a really interesting analogy that describes the difference between working as a teacher at a non-profit college versus a for-profit college. McMillan cotton says that teachers and professors at non-profit universities are more like priests, because they get to help foster students’ faith in themselves and in social institutions. On the other hand, she says that working as a recruiter for a for-profit college is more like being a TV Evangelist. It’s selling education with the false promise that it will solve all the student’s problems. McMillan Cottom points out that we like to pretend like the main reason we support education is because we think it’s a public good. However, in reality, we really see it as a necessary pathway to jobs. Education is serving market interests. These for-profit colleges that tend to dupe students who can’t afford or don’t have the option to attend anywhere else can be described as “Lower Ed.” Lower Ed is made up of institutions that perpetuate social inequalities and are mainly trying to increase capital. 

    McMillan Cottom makes it clear that for-profit colleges are dangerous and detrimental to the lives of many students, particularly targeting those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. These institutions are perpetuating socioeconomic equality rather than working to alleviate it. However, she also says that she doesn’t see for-profit colleges coming to an end anytime soon. She says that even if they were forced out of business, some other lower-ed scheme would take their place. I’m wondering what McMillan Cottom would suggest as a solution to the issue of For-Profit colleges. Should non-profit education be made more accessible to a greater range of students? Or does this issue start all the way back with inequalities in K-12 schools, since schools in the U.S. are funded based on income-taxes, which further perpetuates income-inequality. My hunch is that McMillan Cottom would support change in both our K-12 system and our university system here in the U.S. Quality education should be accessible to everyone, regardless of socioeconomic background.