Ivory Tower' explores higher education crisis on CNN
Documentary takes deep dive on $1 trillion student loan debt problem this Thursday at 9 and 11 p.m.
- CNN Films/YouTube screenshot
- BORROWED TIME: America's $1 trillion student loan debt is one of the topics explored in Ivory Tower.
Higher ed. is dead. Kind of like journalism before it and the publishing and music industries. But it's not the Internet that's threatening the centuries-old business model — though online learning could help revolutionize it — it's the excessive debt and rising tuition costs that are bankrupting the system.
As student-loan debt nears $1 trillion in this country, the documentary Ivory Tower examines just how broke America's college model is and what it means for the country's future. When I caught the film in a mostly empty theater during a short run at Atlanta's Midtown Arts Cinema this summer, it felt like the kind of documentary that should be required viewing for every American concerned about the future of this country. Now that it's getting wider distribution via cable television, hopefully it'll get the audience it deserves.
Scheduled to air at 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. Thurs., Nov. 20 on CNN, the film dissects the question: "Is college worth the cost?" Directors Andrew Rossi and Kate Novack take a deep dive — from private institutions to public universities, Ivy League to party schools — to talk to professors, students, presidents and scholars who've all grappled with the same question.
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Columbia University Professor Andrew Delbanco (author of "College: What It Was, Is, And Should Be") provides a historical breakdown that illuminates how the cost of higher education has spun out of control in an increasingly competitive marketplace. The film also explore the impact of Reagan-era politics and the resulting rise in student loans from the decline in federal grant programs.
Atlanta's all-female and historically black Spelman College is documented among the bright spots for its social impact, along with the free all-male California-desert school Deep Springs. But the film climaxes with the student-led fight to keep New York's Cooper Union tuition-free, despite President Jamshed Barucha's plan to begin charging tuition for the first time in the school's 150-year history.
Even the Internet-led attempt to reshape higher learning through MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses) startups like edX and Udacity seems challenged at best.
Ivory Tower is one of several forthcoming docs acquired by CNN Films' division heads Amy Entelis, (svp of talent and content development) and Vinnie Malhotra (svp of development and acquisitions) for theatrical exhibition before airing across CNN's multiple platforms. Included among future releases is Life Itself, the stellar profile on film critic Roger Ebert, directed by Steve James (Hoop Dreams).
Ivory Tower. Airs 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. Thurs., Nov. 20 on CNN.