After the Ivory Tower Falls: How College Broke the American Dream and Blew Up Our Politics—and How to Fix It

Written by Will Bunch

Narrated by Fred Sanders

From Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Will Bunch, the epic untold story of college—the great political and cultural fault line of American life

Winner of the Athenaeum of Philadelphia Literary Award | Longlisted for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction | "This book is simply terrific." —Heather Cox Richardson | "Ambitious and engrossing." —New York Times Book Review | "A must-read." —Nancy MacLean, author of Democracy in Chains

Today there are two Americas, separate and unequal, one educated and one not. And these two tribes—the resentful “non-college” crowd and their diploma-bearing yet increasingly disillusioned adversaries—seem on the brink of a civil war. The strongest determinant of whether a voter was likely to support Donald Trump in 2016 was whether or not they attended college, and the degree of loathing they reported feeling toward the so-called “knowledge economy" of clustered, educated elites. Somewhere in the winding last half-century of the United States, the quest for a college diploma devolved from being proof of America’s commitment to learning, science, and social mobility into a kind of Hunger Games contest to the death. That quest has infuriated both the millions who got shut out and millions who got into deep debt to stay afloat.

In After the Ivory Tower Falls, award-winning journalist Will Bunch embarks on a deeply reported journey to the heart of the American Dream. That journey begins in Gambier, Ohio, home to affluent, liberal Kenyon College, a tiny speck of Democratic blue amidst the vast red swath of white, post-industrial, rural midwestern America. To understand “the college question,” there is no better entry point than Gambier, where a world-class institution caters to elite students amidst a sea of economic despair.

From there, Bunch traces the history of college in the U.S., from the landmark GI Bill through the culture wars of the 60’s and 70’s, which found their start on college campuses. We see how resentment of college-educated elites morphed into a rejection of knowledge itself—and how the explosion in student loan debt fueled major social movements like Occupy Wall Street. Bunch then takes a question we need to ask all over again—what, and who, is college even for?—and pushes it into the 21st century by proposing a new model that works for all Americans.

The sum total is a stunning work of journalism, one that lays bare the root of our political, cultural, and economic division—and charts a path forward for America.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperAudio
• Release date: Aug 2, 2022
• ISBN: 9780063077027

Will Bunch

Will Bunch is national opinion columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer and author of several books, including Tear Down This Myth: The Right-Wing Distortion of the Reagan Legacy, The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, Paranoia Politics and High-Def Hucksters in the Age of Obama, and the e-book The Bern Identity: A Search for Bernie Sanders and the New American Dream. He has won numerous journalism awards and shared the 1992 Pulitzer Prize for spot news reporting with the New York Newsday staff.

Reviews for After the Ivory Tower Falls

[citizenjoyce · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I would have given this book 5 stars if it weren't for the author's pushing either trump or Bernie as the only reasonable choices. People who thought that gave us trump, whom everyone has to agree was no good for education. His solution to the problem of people being priced out of a college education are all good - gap years, a year of service to the nation, free college, less restrictive enrolling, less spending on perks to lure the 1% and more spending on actual education, and ultimately less spending on war and more spending on the lives of citizens. All these are good solutions, but if you don't elect people who know how politics work, then you don't get any of them.

[John Ladd · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

So thought provoking. Thanks you great read Xtxx xxx xxx

[pomo58 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

After the Ivory Tower Falls by Will Bunch is a detailed and nuanced look at how college has gone from a symbol of the American dream to a divisive battleground in the current partisan environment.In tracing how a college education went from being only for a select few to being an avenue for (theoretically) all to improve their lot in life and then on to becoming a political pawn and punching bag Bunch offers insight into what we could have done and what we still could do.It seems to me that one of the biggest obstacles to actual debate on making higher education accessible, affordable, and effective is how we define higher education. So many of us think only of 4-year universities and maybe a nod toward community colleges. First of all, community colleges deserve a lot more than a nod. In addition, the inclusion of skills training, apprenticeships, and many other forms of education and training need to be included in a wide-ranging plan to include as many people as possible and as many avenues toward a fulfilling life as possible. We can't go back in time, whether to make the decisions about higher education that should have been made in Truman's time or to a world where manufacturing is again a dominant and well-paying field. Many of those jobs are gone, not to someplace else but simply gone. The consensus and motivation that we had early in this time frame is also gone so what we should have done is mostly moot, though we can learn (one hopes) from it. We have to look at where we are now, who we are now, and work toward something that will do the best for the most. Bunch offers suggestions and ideas toward this end and the future of our young people is the future of our country, and that should not be a partisan issue.One quote from close to the front struck me. In discussing Clark Kerr and the type of meritocracy envisioned at the time, Bunch states "[a]wash in prosperity, no one worried about a future in which the fantasy of merit-based success became entrenched, but the equality of opportunity needed for a real system of merit would disappear." For me, that sums up a lot of what still angers and frustrates me about where we are. We went from college being for the elite, to college being a steppingstone for millions of everyday people, and now back to college being for the elite (as far as postgraduate success) while being a burden on everyone else (whether from crippling debt in a poor job market or being shut out completely from even attending and having the chance).My comments are what struck me and are my takeaways. The book itself offers so much information that I think any reader with an interest in how we can repair society will find points that speak to them and thus have different takeaways. Ideally, all of us with our different perspectives can then start some kind of dialogue about making meaningful change.Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.