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CHARLES FREDRICKS – Despite some omissions, this film is worthy of support, an important contribution to getting the word out about the tragedy befalling our country’s systems of higher learning. The film focuses only on ‘public’ institutions, which due to government cutbacks are becoming more private all the time. As we cross the dubious milestone of one trillion dollars of student loan debt, it examines how dearly this pain is felt by those who bear it most; the students. It attempts to track some of the footprints that reveal how we got here. In some cases it doesn’t track them far enough.

Co-produced by CNN, it has the feel of a made for television production. The producers follow the money trail to illuminate how a building boom fostered in the competition between schools for students has warped public institutions, causing tuition to skyrocket, as much of the cost is passed on to the students. With more time, money and courage perhaps, the producers might have followed it further to reveal how corporate donors who support this boom are often able to dictate to a large degree which curriculum they’d like pursued and which professors they’d like to see teaching in in those new buildings— warping the cultural heritage of civilization to their ends.

The implications of shifting funding from government to large private and corporate donors, whether a public institution or not, is barely explored, in favor of elucidating how the game is played by competing schools to attract students, how increased tuition leads to lower local enrollment and lower graduation rates, and how the pain of increased tuition is felt by those who graduate with huge student loan debt— only to find their credential is no guarantee of employment. The unsuccessful fight of the students of Coopers Union in New York, founded with a massive endowment on the principle of free tuition, to maintain that principle in the face of poor financial/development decisions beyond their control that squandered much of the endowment, is particularly poignant.

Also unexamined is how the confluence of these pressures cause a college education in the U.S. to be losing value compared to lesser expensive European institutions that have thus far been more successfully protected from similar pressures.

The film covers entrepreneurial alternatives of online scholarship and un-college learning systems. The great expectations on MOOCs, Massive Open Online Courses, as a cheaper means to provide the same educational experience, seems to have been oversold when compared to the graduation rates of those who actually complete such courses.

An informative film, a definite go— but these issues deserve more in depth treatment.

***3 out of a possible 4 stars.

CHARLES FREDRICKS is a DSA-LA member and participant of the CORE & Planning Committees. IVORY TOWER is currently playing at the Landmark Theater in Westwood and runs for 95 minutes.

Source: Film Review: Ivory Tower (documentary)