Poison Ivy

An eye-opening look at how Americas elite colleges and suburbs help keep the rich richmaking it harder than ever to fight the inequality dividing us Hailed as a staggering portrait of inequality in America (Philip Dray) Poison Ivy tells the bigger, seedier story of how elite colleges create paths to admission available only to the wealthy, despite rhetoric to the contrary. In a lively and trenchant (Washington Monthly) account, Evan Mandery reveals how tacit agreements between exclusive Ivy-plus schools and white affluent suburbs create widespread de facto segregation. And as a college degree continues to be the surest route to upward mobility, the inequality bred in our broken higher education system is now a principal driver of skyrocketing income inequality everywhere. Manderya Harvard graduate and current professor at a public college that serves low- and middle-income studentscontrasts the lip service paid to opportunity by so many elite colleges and universities with schools that actually walk the walk. Poison Ivy is a no-holds-barred take-down (Forbes) that synthesizes fascinating insider information on everything from how students are evaluated, unfair tax breaks, and questionable fundraising practices to suburban rituals, testing, tutoring, tuition schemes, and more. This bold, provocative indictment of Americas elite colleges shows us exactly whats at stakeand what will be possible if we muster the collective will to transform it.