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

by Paul Tough

Overview

“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 of How Children Succeed returns 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 think—not just about higher education, but about the nation itself.

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780544944480
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	09/10/2019
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	907,270
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

PAUL TOUGH is the author of Helping Children Succeed and How Children Succeed, which spent more than a year on the New York Times hardcover and paperback bestseller lists and was translated into twenty-eight languages. He is also the author of Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America. He is a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine and a regular contributor to the public radio program This American Life. You can learn more about his work at paultough.com and follow him on Twitter: @paultough.

Editorial Reviews

05/27/2019

In this fascinating study, education journalist Tough (How Children Succeed) argues persuasively that access to an elite college education, which in the U.S. is popularly believed to be a meritocratically distributed social equalizer, is in fact distributed in ways that reinforce existing economic divisions. In the U.S., a college degree remains both a key to a secure job and a cherished ideal for many, especially high-achieving low-income students. But racially marginalized and low-income students face barriers to accessing that economic mobility, among them the “fickle and unpredictable” nature of admissions calculations; the income-dependent nature of SAT scores; the culture shock and “profound disequilibrium” nonwhite, nonaffluent students experience at highly selective schools; and the difficulties low-income students face in remaining enrolled. Tough vividly illustrates these claims with rigorous readings of data and portraits of individual students, researchers, staff, and faculty. He examines initiatives that aim to level the playing field, and finds that great persistence and time-intensive mentoring and teaching are required for lower-income students to succeed. In the final chapters, he calls for politicians shaping educational policy and funding to promote more equitable structures, drawing parallels with the public high school movement and the GI bill. His analyses of data are sound, his portraits of students and teachers sympathetic, his argument neatly structured, and his topic one with wide appeal. This well-written and persuasive book is likely to make a splash. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Indelible and extraordinary, a powerful reckoning with just how far we’ve allowed reality to drift from our ideals.” —Tara Westover, author of Educated: 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, it’s 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 Most is ostensibly about higher education, about the college experience—and on that level, it’s a completely absorbing narrative with some very surprising, trenchant analysis. But it’s also a lot more than that. It’s a book about class in America. It’s a book about social mobility. And it’s a devastating report card on the American dream. It’s just a very special book.” —Michael Pollan, author of How to Change Your Mind (at WBUR’s CitySpace) “I’ve been begging everyone I know to read this book . . . It’s an utterly absorbing, utterly enlightening, utterly important book about classism in American higher education and the myth of meritocracy.” —Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild, in “By the Book,” New York Times Book Review “[Tough’s] urgent account combines cogent data and artful storytelling to show how higher education has veered from its meritocratic ideals to exacerbate society’s inequality.” —New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice “Can’t recommend this book highly enough. Paul Tough lights a fuse that blows up every piety that American higher education—and indeed, the American upper class—tells itself about elite colleges.” —Dana Goldstein, New York Times (via Twitter) “What’s 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 Tough’s 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 book’s 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 Tough’s daring The Years That Matter Most forces 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 —

From the Publisher

2019-05-22
A broad survey of the nature and role of the college experience.

In his latest book on education, Tough (How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character, 2012, etc.) provides a common-sensical overview of the critical role the college years play in the course of the rest of life. It comes as little surprise that educational attainment, and the quality of that educational setting, is directly correlated with income. But what makes the author's exploration of elite schools intriguing is the class analysis he brings to his discussion of who is admitted to the top schools and how they do once they get there. If a student was prepped for the experience at a boarding school or a high-performing high school, then the transition is likely to be a lot less overwhelming than for a first-generation college-goer or a low-income student. The book is fueled by anecdotal evidence, putting readers in the shoes of students navigating the cultural disruptions and emotionally wrenching times that attend social mobility. Tough closely scrutinizes one of the determinants of the college pecking order: the SAT and ACT tests. Again, the results are hardly a surprise. If you can afford an expensive tutor who explains that the tests are designed to measure your ability to take the tests, not your math or verbal skills, you have an advantage. The admissions process, with its "market-based dictates of enrollment management," its predictive analytics and yield rates, has resulted in a situation where the admissions staff spend more time looking for low-performing, high-income students than the reverse: "That's how they make their budget." Still, while jobs available to those without a degree are routinely unstable and unreliable, the degree's wage premium these days is chiefly insurance against moving downward. Thankfully, the author includes inspiring anecdotes about low-income students, which lightens the mostly bleak-looking landscape. Though offering little groundbreaking news, Tough clearly shows that college placement remains mostly about wealth at the expense of a collective educational environment.

A good choice for aspiring college students and their parents.

Kirkus Reviews

Author/narrator Paul Tough explores the many barriers and processes in place that hinder success in getting into and completing college. Tough’s narration comes across like that of a gritty gumshoe detective, in part because of his deep, gravelly voice. Yet his tone also conveys suspicion, especially as his research illuminates the ways that the affluent game the system, such as the Varsity Blues scandal of 2019. Tough contrasts that level of privilege to the egregious complications and limitations of resources most other students run into while aspiring to a first-class education. In another audiobook, Tough’s delivery might detract, but in this production it draws out the pitfalls of the specific individuals he has researched and suggests the gloomy outlook for upward mobility in the U.S. today. L.E. © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

FEBRUARY 2020 - AudioFile