Fail U.: The False Promise of Higher Education

<p>The cost of a college degree has increased by 1,125% since 1978 - four times the rate of inflation. Total student debt is $1.3 trillion. Many private universities charge tuitions ranging from $60-70,000 per year. Nearly 2/3 of all college students must borrow to study, and the average student graduates with more than $30,000 in debt. 53% of college graduates under 25 years old are unemployed or underemployed (working part-time or in low-paying jobs that do not require college degrees) . Professors - remember them? - rarely teach undergraduates at many major universities. 76% of all university classes are taught by part-time, untenured faculty. </p><p> In Fail U., Charles J. Sykes asks, &quot;Is it worth it?&quot; With chapters exploring the staggering costs of a college education, the sharp decline in tenured faculty and teaching loads, the explosion of administrator jobs, the grandiose building plans (gyms, food courts, student recreation centers) , and the hysteria surrounding the &quot;epidemic&quot; of campus rapes, &quot;triggers,&quot; &quot;micro-aggressions,&quot; and other forms of alleged trauma, Fail U. concludes by offering a different vision of higher education; one that is affordable, more productive, and better-suited to meet the needs of a diverse range of students.</p><p> Provocative, persuasive, clear-eyed, and even amusing, Fail U. strips the academic emperor of its clothes to reveal the American university system as it really is - and how it must change.</p>