Lower Ed: Credentials and Inequality Tressie McMillan Cottom, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Virginia Commonwealth University
Tressie McMillan Cottom is an assistant professor of
sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University and faculty
associate with Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for
Internet & Society.
Her research on higher education, work and technological change
in the new economy has been supported by the Microsoft Research
Network’s Social Media Collective, The Kresge Foundation, the
American Educational Research Association and the UC Davis Center
for Poverty Research. She has published on
race/class/gender, education, and technology in the new economy.
She is the author of “Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit
Colleges in the New Economy” (2017, The New Press). The New York
Times called Lower Ed the “best book yet on the complex lives and
choices of for-profit college students”.
Dr. McMillan Cottom is also co-editor of two academic books:
“Digital Sociologies” from Policy Press and “For Profit U” from
Palgrave MacMillan. She speaks extensively, including recent
invitations to The White House, South Africa, New Zealand, and
Italy.
Her public scholarship has appeared in The New York Times,
The Washington Post, NPR’s Fresh Air, The Daily Show, Slate, and
The Atlantic.
