Class Dismissed

When Colleges Ignore Inequality and Students Pay the Price

By: Anthony Abraham Jack

Narrated by: Anthony Abraham Jack

Class Dismissed reveals the entrenched inequities that harm our most vulnerable students and what colleges can do to help them excel

Elite colleges are boasting unprecedented numbers with respect to diversity, with some schools admitting their first majority-minority classes. But when the twin pandemics of COVID-19 and racial unrest gripped the world, schools scrambled to figure out what to do with the diversity they so fervently recruited. And disadvantaged students suffered. Class Dismissed exposes how woefully unprepared colleges were to support these students and shares their stories of how they were left to weather the storm alone and unprotected.

Drawing on the firsthand experiences of students from all walks of life at elite colleges, Anthony Abraham Jack reveals the out-of-sight and unequal worlds students navigated before and during the pandemic closures and upon their return to campus. He shows how COVID-19 exacerbated the very inequalities that universities ignored or failed to address long before campus closures. Jack examines how students dealt with the disruptions caused by the pandemic, how they navigated social unrest, and how they grappled with problems of race both on campus and off.

A provocative and much-needed book, Class Dismissed paints an intimate and unflinchingly candid portrait of the challenges of undergraduate life for disadvantaged students even in the elite schools that invest millions to diversify their student body. Moreover, Jack offers guidance on how to make students’ path to graduation less treacherous—guidance colleges would be wise to follow.

This audiobook narrated by Anthony Abraham Jack reveals the entrenched inequities that harm our most vulnerable students and what colleges can do to help them excel.

©2024 Anthony Abraham Jack (P)2024 Princeton University Press

No words can replace the read.

This book was an audible automatic suggestion, as I had read "The privileged poor" a few years back. Quite honestly, I was not 'into' the first text, but decided to read this anyway. I am so glad I did.

Anthony's work as a story teller, a scholar, and a social justice advocate in this book shows his own development and fine-tuning of skills that were used to poetically and powerfully tell the stories we need to know. I hope that those in power, those who hold the status of inequity in their control, read these pages and hear these experiences and find discomfort enough to make changes that matter.

To the participants: thank you for sharing our stories through your stories

Dr. Jack: if you read this review, may you know your work is good. I hope you find satisfaction in the toil of your journey and work.