The Inequality Machine

Humanizes the process of higher education . . . Fascinating stories about efforts to remediate class disparities in higher education

New Yorker

Indelible and extraordinary, a powerful reckoning with just how far we've allowed reality to drift from our ideals.

Tara Westover (author of EDUCATED), New York Times Book Review

Gorgeously reported. Vividly written. Utterly lucid. Paul Tough jumps skilfully between deeply engaging personal narratives and the bigger truths of higher education. The way he tells the stories of these students, it's impossible not to care about them and get angry on their behalf.

Ira Glass, host of NPR'S THIS AMERICAN LIFE

A stunning piece of work . . . A completely absorbing narrative with some very surprising, trenchant analysis . . . A devastating report card on the American dream. It's just a very special book.

Michael Pollen, author of HOW TO CHANGE YOUR MIND

[Tough's] urgent account combines cogent data and artful storytelling to show how higher education has veered from its meritocratic ideals to exacerbate society's inequality.

Editors' Choice, New York Times Book Review

Important . . . Among his book's many vital contributions are its portraits of schools and programs that model a better way.

New York Times

Paul Tough is a beautiful reporter and writer and a deeply moral guide to understanding the situation of children in our heartless meritocracy . . . A great book that should start a necessary conversation.

George Packer, author of THE UNWINDING

[Tough] writes movingly about students who are trying to navigate the confounding, expensive, and intimidating process of getting into and staying in college.

Wired

A deeply reported and damning portrait of fraying American social mobility . . . A clear-eyed portrait of what a stacked game it really is.

Quartz

A readable kiss-and-tell study . . . Tough finds that higher education, which has the potential to increase upward mobility, has become an obstacle that perpetuates social rigidity. The poor remain poor and the rich get richer . . . this study is laced with deep anger.

Times Higher Education

A comprehensive, moving account of the inequalities that block many poor, minority and first-generation students from realizing the benefits of a college education.

Forbes

Indelible and extraordinary, a powerful reckoning with just how far we’ve allowed reality to drift from our ideals. It’s difficult to overstate the importance of higher education to the present moment.

Tara Westover, New York Times Book Review

In this fascinating study, education journalist Tough argues persuasively that access to an elite college education, which in the US is popularly believed to be a meritocratically distributed social equalizer, is in fact distributed in ways that reinforce existing economic divisions . . . This well-written and persuasive book is likely to make a splash.

Publishers Weekly