Sara Goldrick-Rab places students at the center of her work. For more than 15 years, she has maintained a consistent focus on researching and writing about the struggles of impoverished, working-class, and middle-class students attending college and the myriad institutional hurdles they face.
But it goes beyond writing and research. Goldrick-Rab has long served as an advocate for students who encounter inequalities in the system. This isn’t limited to merely covering tuition and fees, but also securing enough money to pay for daily necessities, including nutritious food, adequate housing, and appropriate clothing.
In her projects, including the 2016 best-selling book, Paying the Price: College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American Dream, Goldrick-Rab presents a disheartening reality, but also proposes solutions that could remove or alleviate the burden on American students. Through this work, she helped steer former President Barack Obama’s administration policy on community colleges, landed appearances on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah and at TEDx Philadelphia, and earned numerous distinctions (including being named one of Politico’s Top 50 People Shaping U.S. Politics).
As a professor of higher education policy and sociology at Temple University and the founding director of the Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice, Goldrick-Rab continues to speak to the value of higher education, present alarming statistics, and share the stories of students encountering a system that isn’t working for them. Plus, this sociologist is a firecracker on Twitter, unafraid of directly engaging with students (or critics), as she spotlights specific issues and offers meaningful answers.
Goldrick-Rab will share some of her research and insights when she gives the closing keynote address at CASE’s Conference for Community College Advancement, Oct. 2-4, in San Diego, California. To learn more about her background and perspective, check out the podcast, videos, and articles below.
- The Association of Community College Trustees’ In the Know podcast
- “It’s Hard to Study if You’re Hungry” in the New York Times.
- “How Financial Aid Betrays the Modern Family” in The Atlantic.
For more, visit Goldrick-Rab’s website: http://saragoldrickrab.com/