I HAVE SPENT MUCH OF THE PAST EIGHT YEARS RESEARCHING AND WRITING this book, and throughout the journey I have been helped by a vast number of individuals in multiple ways. I am tremendously grateful to each one of them.
My understanding of higher education politics has been enhanced immeasurably by the thirty-one individuals I interviewed for this project, some of them two or three times. These individuals work as congressional staffers on Capitol Hill, employees of the US Department of Education, or lobbyists or higher education advocates for trade associations, student associations, consumer groups, and other groups involved in the policymaking process. Their identities are protected and therefore I cannot thank each one by name, but their willingness to give of their time and to share their knowledge, insights, and reflections candidly with me proved indispensable for this project.
A couple of generations of students have worked as research assistants on this project. The book’s illustrations owe particularly to the marvelous expertise of Julianna Koch. In addition, I received excellent help from Matt Guardino and Sarah Byrnes at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University; and at Cornell University, from Dennis Hui, Mike Miller, Deondra Rose, Mallory SoRelle, Danielle Thomsen, Keith Tonsager, and Alexis Walker. Each one of them has made a mark on this book. Deondra’s own scholarship on higher education policy has gone far to deepen my understanding, and our work on a joint conference paper influenced my analysis in Chapter 2.
Over the years, I have presented numerous papers drawn from this project: at academic conferences; at the Russell Sage Foundation; and at several universities, including the University of California at Berkeley, Cornell, MIT, Minnesota, Northwestern, and Oxford. I cannot begin to thank all of the individuals who raised useful questions and provided insightful comments on these occasions; suffice to say they have shaped what this book evolved into. Throughout the research process, several wonderful scholars offered incisive comments and raised probing questions, including Dan Carpenter, Luciana Dar, Alisa Hicklin Fryar, Jacob Hacker, Christopher Howard, Larry Jacobs, Desmond King, Steven Teles, and Theda Skocpol.
Two colleagues, Jeff Stonecash of Syracuse University and Richard Valelly of Swarthmore, exhibited incredible generosity by taking time out of their own busy schedules of research and writing to read the entire book manuscript. They offered trenchant—and indispensable—feedback and suggestions that greatly aided me in making revisions. The book has come to fruition thanks to my astute and gracious agent, Lisa Adams, and all of the talented, helpful staff at Basic Books, including Sandra Beris, Chrisona Schmidt, and Kaitlyn Zafonte. Anything I can write about the contribution of my editor, Tim Bartlett, risks severe understatement. He understood what I was trying to convey, perhaps better than I did, and how to help me accomplish it. He offered sage advice and raised penetrating questions on every single page of the manuscript. It has been an incredible privilege to work with him once again.
The project was funded primarily by a generous grant from the Spencer Foundation, as well as through leave time provided by Cornell University. Christina Leigh Deitz at Syracuse provided crucial help on grant writing, and Laurie Coon at Cornell expertly administered the grant. The research on developments during the Obama administration was supported by the Russell Sage Foundation, as part of a group convened to study policy developments in several issue areas in 2009–2011.
My greatest debts are to my family. My five siblings and I were fortunate to be raised by parents—John and Elinor Mettler—who were determined that each of us would go to college. They worked hard and sacrificed to ensure that we could. Later on, at my sisters’ weddings and my own, my father would always stand up and make what amounted to a bold defense of higher education. He would announce to the guests, “I told each of my daughters that I wanted her to get a college degree so that she could support herself, and then she could marry any damn bum she wanted.” I’ve been blessed a million times over—not least to have had incredible parents; for them to have supported me to attend Boston College, which opened up the world to me and set in motion a lifetime of intellectual engagement; and to have wound up with the (so-called) “damn bum” without whom this book would not exist, Wayne Grove. Wayne has discussed every facet of this book with me, time and again, throughout all of these years; he has read and commented on numerous chapter drafts; he has alerted me to countless reports and studies of higher education; he cooked one delicious meal after another with food grown in his abundant vegetable garden; and he and our daughters Sophie and Julia have made every day a joy.
It is my sister Jeanne Mettler who first ignited in me a zeal for higher education. Jeanne went off to college when I was just a kid, and when she came back home for visits, she was brimming over with excitement about the world of ideas, the liberal arts, and critical thinking. Through her, college professors became our dear family friends, especially Bill Darden and Diana Diaz, and the conversations were always invigorating. Jeanne—as a criminal defense attorney and as a teacher—has devoted several decades of her life to helping young people who grew up in far more difficult circumstances to have greater opportunities. She continues to be the most ardent defender of the value of higher education of anyone I know. This book is dedicated to her with admiration and love.