Ivory Tower is a documentary that exposes the perils of investing so much money in higher education. At that same time, it fosters credence in the faulty belief that everyone should attend college. There are moments within that offer alternative arteries to education. One is at an isolated “college” in an agrarian setting in California. The other is through an education-driven coop led by Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal.
Of course, there are also references to Mark Zuckerberg, who famously dropped out of Harvard and became, well, Mark Zuckerberg. However, these success stories are often mentioned in passing, and the lament throughout the film is that students leave college buried in much more debt than they will be able to pay off. While true, the film makes student debt look mandatory and its nefariousness is often amplified by placing it next to the earned salaries of the presidents of Ivy League schools, or, most specifically, Jamshed Barucha, whose salary is near $750,000. As president of New York City’s Cooper Union – a school that up until a few years ago was free to all students that were accepted – he earns almost as much as Drew G. Faust, Harvard University’s president.
While few complain about Faust’s salary because, one, it’s Harvard, two, the annual tuition is over $60k, and three, it’s Harvard, Barucha’s earnings are heavily scrutinized because the Cooper Union found itself in deep debt and was forced to charge its students tuition for the first time in its 100-plus-year history. Despite a student occupation of the President’s office, and a blatant protest at commencement, Cooper Union maintained the tuition requirements, Barucha still hold the position of president, and Cooper Union continues to rile in debt.
However, the largest misunderstanding here is that everyone should be admitted to college.
At one point, there is a frightening statistic that 65% of students fail to graduate in four years. The next statistic declares that 44% fail to graduate in six years. The fact that the first stat might be skewed on account of students double majoring or switching majors is not really accounted for, but neither is the standard belief that the students should have actually been there in the first place.
There is a utopic view of college creating the illusion that admission to college = a degree, and subsequently that a degree = a job. To tackle the for equation, the endemic expectation that student move from elementary school to high school to college sets up the belief that college is the next and necessary logical step. However, in recent years, it’s been shown that the average high school graduate leaves with a less-than-3.0 GPA (source). Given the wonkiness and inconsistency of high school curriculums, and the tendency for seniors to take easier courses as they approach graduation, this GPA is rather frightening and hardly prepares students for the assumed rigors of college curriculums.
Doubly complicating a student’s entry into college is the financial burden assumed once they enter the doors. The trite cliché is that you get what you pay for. However, this is inappropriately applied to a college education. There is no guarantee that the sometimes-massive tuition bill you rack up will result in the assumed education or in success. Thus, the assumption that one should go to college sets the expectation that the debt accrued automatically results in the degree desired.
This is further murkied by linking the college life with social activity and the notion that part of college is experiencing life. This is most blatant when the list(s) of top party schools in the country is release through numerous platforms (source, source, source). While the connection between social life and college is apparent, the published overvaluing of social interaction skews the reason to attend college and can also be factored into the success rate of students in college. Ivory Tower discusses this somewhat false advertisement, but does not investigate the student’s wonky desire to attend college as much as it blames the university for advertising itself as such.
Ultimately, these complications also create a speed bump for those who believe that a degree = the ideal job. While this isn’t unattainable and impossible, it’s idealistic and problematized by colleges flooding the job market with experts that are not. In part, this stems from the difficulty for an educator to fail a student. As a former professor, I can speak to this. It’s not that I feel more of my students should have repeated the course, but it’s not easy to convince them – or upper administration. Colleges and universities are a businesses and without students, they have no consumers. Without student retention, funding is impacted. When one honestly feels that a student needs to repeat a course in order to truly grasp the material beyond the low threshold of 59.9% understanding, there are often meetings with department chairs to prove – most helpfully in writing with Excel spreadsheets and work samples – why the student, whose parents (if not him or herself), are paying a hefty price just to get three additional credits to move closer to graduation will need to pay more money and delay their graduation just to make up this class.
To Ivory Tower’s brief point, this might be why so many of the popular educators on Rate My Professor are emphasized on account of their easiness.
All in all, Ivory Tower offers a valiant fight for the future of our children and the potentially crippling debt that they might incur. However, the multiple issue surrounding education in the United States are too convoluted to summarize, much less remedy, in a 90 minute film. Unfortunately, this compression of concerns casts all of the blame on universities and almost sides with the students who honestly believe that admission to college is a byway for the educations process.