Tressie McMillan Cottom

Tressie McMillan Cottom
Academic background
Alma mater Emory University
Thesis Becoming Real Colleges in the Financialized Era of U.S. Higher Education: The Expansion and Legitimation of For-Profit Colleges (2015)
Academic work
Discipline Sociology
Institutions
Main interests American higher education, inequality, work, technology
Notable works Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy

Tressie McMillan Cottom is an American writer, sociologist, and professor. She is currently an assistant professor of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University and a faculty associate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. McMillan Cottom is the author of Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy, a co-editor of For-Profit Universities and Digital Sociologies, and an essayist whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, Slate, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. She is frequently quoted in print and television media as an academic expert in inequality and American higher education.

photo of the entrance of North Carolina Central University
North Carolina Central University, where McMillan Cottom earned her BA

Early life and education

McMillan Cottom was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina.[1] Her mother was a member of the Black Panther Party in Winston-Salem.[2] Before completing her undergraduate degree McMillan Cottom worked as an enrollment officer at a technical college, a job that would inform her later research and her first book.[3] McMillan Cottom received her B.A. from North Carolina Central University, a public HBCU, in English and political science.[4] While pursuing her Ph.D. at Emory University McMillan Cottom worked as a visiting fellow at the University of California, Davis Center for Poverty Research and as a Microsoft Research Social Media Collective intern.[5][6] She also wrote the biweekly "Counter Narrative" column for Slate magazine.[7] She earned her PhD in sociology from Emory University in 2015 with a dissertation on the legitimacy of for-profit higher education institutions.[8]

Career

In 2015 McMillan Cottom became an assistant professor of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University and a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society.[9][10]

Public intellectual

Before the publication of her book Lower Ed McMillan Cottom was known primarily as an essayist and academic expert on issues of inequality, higher education, and race.[11] She writes from the analytical perspective of intersectionality.[12] Her essays have advocated for reparations to African Americans,[13] identified racism rather than political correctness as the real threat to university campus life,[14] and suggested that black girls are treated as more adult than white girls.[15] She is a contributing editor at Dissent and one of HuffPost's commissioned opinion columnists.[16] In addition to her own writing, McMillan Cottom has been featured in The New York Times,[17] National Public Radio (NPR),[18] Harvard Educational Review,[19] Mother Jones,[20] Inside Higher Ed,[21] and The Daily Show.[22] Drawing on her experience dealing with controversy as a public intellectual, McMillan Cottom wrote a guide for academics who come under public attack from organized digital campaigns.[23][24]

Lower Ed

McMillan Cottom's 2017 book Lower Ed is an analysis of the for-profit educational sector from the perspective of students trying to navigate a "risky and highly variable" economy.[17] Lower Ed is based on interviews with students and college executives, analysis of for-profit college promotional materials, and McMillan Cottom's own experience working as an enrollment officer at two for-profit institutions. The main finding is that rising emphasis on credentialism in the American job market pushes students to make riskier but individually rational trade-offs in order to obtain educational credentials.[25] According to McMillan Cottom, for-profit institutions are generally more expensive than non-profit institutions and aggressively market to low-income and working poor students who qualify for the most financial aid, but students are making considered choices about their futures and are not simply being duped by marketing.[26] Lower Ed suggests that policies intended to constrain the marketing behavior of for-profit institutions will not address the underlying political economy issue, and may increase inequalities, especially gender inequalities, in the distribution of valued educational credentials and jobs.[21][27] Harvard Educational Review described Lower Ed as "theoretically provocative, empirically rich, and enjoyable to read".[19]

Awards

Bibliography

Books

  • (Co-editor, with William A. Darity Jr.) For-Profit Universities: The Shifting Landscape of Marketized Higher Education (2016, Palgrave MacMillan, ISBN 9783319471860)
  • (Co-editor, with Jesse Daniels and Karen Gregory) Digital Sociologies (2016, Policy Press, ISBN 9781447329015)
  • Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy (2017, The New Press, ISBN 9781620970607)

Selected essays

  • "No, college isn't the answer. Reparations are." Washington Post, April 29, 2014[13]
  • "The Coded Language of For-Profit Colleges." The Atlantic, February 22, 2017[29]
  • "How We Make Black Girls Grow Up Too Fast." The New York Times, June 29, 2017[15]
  • "The Real Threat to Campuses Isn't 'PC Culture.' It's Racism." Huffington Post, February 19, 2018[14]

References

  1. ↑ Pitkin, Ryan (May 15, 2017). "Tressie McMillan Cottom Ends Book Tour Back Home in Charlotte Tonight". Creative Loafing Charlotte. Retrieved August 22, 2018.
  2. ↑ Murphy, Carla (September 15, 2014). "'My Feminism Starts 300 Years Ago' | Colorlines". Colorlines. Retrieved August 22, 2018.
  3. ↑ Kapsidelis, Karin (March 12, 2017). "Profit motive turns higher ed to 'Lower Ed,' VCU professor says". Richmond Times-Dispatch. Retrieved August 22, 2018.
  4. ↑ Bell, Kia C. (March 28, 2017). "Alumna Authors Book About Higher Education". NCCU News. North Carolina Central University. Retrieved August 22, 2018.
  5. ↑ "Tressie McMillan Cottom - UC Davis Center for Poverty Research". UC Davis Center for Poverty Research. Retrieved 2018-07-23.
  6. ↑ Crawford, Kate (March 13, 2014). "Welcoming the SMC Interns for 2014". Microsoft Research. Retrieved August 22, 2018.
  7. ↑ "Counter Narrative". Slate. Retrieved August 22, 2018.
  8. ↑ "Commencement 2015: Dissertations showcase original scholarship". Emory News Center. Emory University. May 8, 2015. Retrieved August 22, 2018.
  9. ↑ "Sociology Welcomes New Faculty Member–Tressie McMillan Cottom". VCU Sociology News. Virginia Commonwealth University. January 13, 2015. Retrieved August 22, 2018.
  10. ↑ "Tressie McMillan Cottom: Ethics and Governance of AI". Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. Retrieved August 22, 2018.
  11. ↑ Examples of coverage:
    • Deruy, Emily (August 17, 2016). "The Fine Line Between Safe Space and Segregation". The Atlantic. Retrieved August 22, 2018.
    • "What Legalizing Recreational Marijuana Could Mean For Minorities". Here & Now. WBUR-FM. January 16, 2014. Retrieved August 22, 2018.
    • Stoeffel, Kat (August 28, 2013). "If You Read Just One (More) Miley Cyrus Think Piece…". The Cut. Retrieved August 22, 2018.
  12. ↑ Korn, Jenny (June 20, 2017). "Writing A Book In And Of Real Life: An interview with Tressie McMillan Cottom". HASTAC. Retrieved August 22, 2018.
  13. 1 2 McMillan Cottom, Tressie (May 29, 2014). "No, college isn't the answer. Reparations are". Washington Post. Retrieved August 22, 2018.
  14. 1 2 Cottom, Tressie McMillan (2018-02-19). "The Real Threat To Campuses Isn't 'PC Culture.' It's Racism". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2018-07-23.
  15. 1 2 McMillan Cottom, Tressie (July 29, 2017). "How We Make Black Girls Grow Up Too Fast". The New York Times. Retrieved August 22, 2018.
  16. ↑ Polgreen, Lydia (January 18, 2018). "Introducing HuffPost Opinion And HuffPost Personal". HuffPost. Retrieved August 22, 2018. ; "Masthead". Dissent. Retrieved August 21, 2018.
  17. 1 2 Goldstein, Dana (March 7, 2017). "The Troubling Appeal of Education at For-Profit Schools". The New York Times. Retrieved August 21, 2018.
  18. ↑ Kamenetz, Anya (February 28, 2017). "To This Scholar, For-Profit Colleges Are 'Lower Ed'". National Public Radio. Retrieved July 23, 2018.
  19. 1 2 Foley, Nadirah Farah (2017). "Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy". Harvard Educational Review. 87 (4).
  20. ↑ Rios, Edwin (February 28, 2017). "This woman knows how bad for-profit colleges are. She used to sell them". Mother Jones. Retrieved August 22, 2018.
  21. 1 2 Reed, Matt (February 19, 2017). "Lower Ed: A Review". Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved August 21, 2018.
  22. ↑ "Tressie McMillan Cottom - Investigating For-Profit Colleges in "Lower Ed" - Extended Interview - The Daily Show with Trevor Noah (Video Clip) | Comedy Central". Comedy Central. Retrieved 2018-07-23.
  23. ↑ Rees, Jonathan (November 8, 2017). "The Wrong Kind of Famous". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved August 22, 2018.
  24. ↑ Quintana, Chris (July 18, 2017). "'If There's an Organized Outrage Machine, We Need an Organized Response'". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved August 22, 2018.
  25. ↑ Skallerup Bessette, Lee (March 20, 2017). "Lower Ed: A (Brief) Review". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved August 20, 2018.
  26. ↑ "How For-Profit Colleges Sell 'Risky Education' To The Most Vulnerable". Fresh Air. National Public Radio. March 17, 2017. Retrieved August 21, 2018.
  27. ↑ Seamster, Louise (April 3, 2018). "All Credentials aren't Created Equal". Contexts. 17 (1): 74–75. doi:10.1177/1536504218766541.
  28. ↑ "Awards". Sociologists for Women in Society. 2017-11-08. Retrieved 2018-07-23.
  29. ↑ Cottom, Tressie McMillan (2017-02-22). "For-Profit Colleges Thrive Off of Inequality". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2018-07-23.
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