On the Katie Show, director of the documentary Ivory Tower, Andrew Rossi, discusses the cost – and value – of higher education in the United States today alongside writer Anya Kamenetz and Professor Andrew Deblanco. Couric also highlights the fight against tuition at Cooper Union with Free Cooper Union organizer and recent Cooper Union alumna, Victoria Sobel. Victoria plugs the Committee to Save Cooper Union’s lawsuit and legal fund to preserve free education for all students at Cooper Union.
At 16:20 Andrew Rossi notes how the students of Cooper Union have held several direct actions and occupations to fight back against tuition at Cooper Union. Katie describes the crisis at Cooper Union as “emblematic of how universities are operating now. I know they built this big, big student center that cost millions and millions of dollars and the cost of that was passed down to students, and that’s another example of what’s happening all across the country”
Andrew Rossi at 16:58 “[Cooper Union] is the ultimate symbol for the corporatization of the university. here’s a school with a thousand students, totally free, and they decide to take out a $175 million dollar loan in order to build a building at more than one thousand dollars per square foot. That’s more than a luxury hotel.”
Katie and Victoria Sobel then go on to describe the administration’s response to these issues as “hollow words”
