Bright College Years: Inside the American College Today

by Anne Matthews

Book Overview

As the price of higher education escalates and the number of Americans seeking a college degree steadily rises, it is now more important then ever to think about higher education in a different way. In Bright College Years, Anne Matthews paints a provocative yet evenhanded portrait of the American campus. With each chapter dedicated to sections of the academic year, Matthews puts students, professors, and administrators under the magnifying...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226510921
• ISBN13: 9780226510927
• Release Date: September 1998
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

A Mandantory Read for the Funding Parents

This book is a "must read" for parents about to invest a good portion of their life savings into their eager young model students who still don't know, "What I really want to do."A bunch of hard work went into this book and it shows with every insightful interview and school example. When I finished it. . .the main revelation was that higher education institutions are just like many other organizations,some great, some average, and some that should clearly think about changing to a vocational curriculum; because that's what America needs more than just another liberal arts school for our youth to hang out in until graduation.Oh, by-the-way parents; when you finish it, hand it over to your college hopeful with the rule of finishing the book as a condition of enrollment.

College may look the same as 40 years ago, but things have c

My soon-to-be-college bound daughter recently dropped this little book by me and before I knew it, I had read it through to the end. Somehow, I felt that this book was written especially for me, a 60's college grad who wondered just exactly what's going on behind the walls of ivy. Visiting colleges over the past couple of years made me aware that things are not quite the same as when I was in school which Matthews makes abundantly clear in her concise, well-written, and sometimes humerous prose. So how do I feel now? Am I relieved? Worried? Suicidal? Or just confused? I have a clearer picture of the overall college experience but I'm not sure that I feel any better for it. The typical campus today probably would shock a 60's Rip Van Winkle: the commercialization, students who sleep in class, the Internet, the angst, etc. This well-crafted book is fun to read, entertaining, and loaded with great little nuggets of insight. Her up-close-and-personal visits to Sinte Gleska U. in South Dakota and her tagging along with President Sanders of the College of Charleston were interesting, revealing.

A great read with many pithy insights.

The description on the back of the book calls Anne Matthew's look at higher education "affectionate," but I would say "acerbic" is more accurate. In fluid prose she relates incidents and vignettes which illustrate the contradictions and inconsistencies of higher education today, leaving the reader with a sense of the waste, irresponsibility, and hypocrisy endemic to the enterprise. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Superb!

"Those who can't do, teach," goes the old saw. Well, this teacher of college journalism has written a WONDERFUL piece of journalism about college. "Bright College Years" overflows with passion, clarity, and a feel for the language that socks you in the teeth. You students who want to learn what writing is, sign up for Matthews's class, arrive on time, and sit up front

College from an insiders point-of-view

Bright College Years crystalizes the college experiences for anyone who has ever attended and demystifies the town/gown debate for everyone else. Whether it's a small college in South Dakota or a cultish alumni reunion at Princeton, Anne Matthews has seen it all. It makes you understand the concrete sprawl of the large universities and makes you yearn for a small school like the College of Charleston. I think I finally understand what the fuss is all about about higher education