This book examines the true costs of attendance faced by low- and moderate-income students on four public college campuses, and the consequences of these costs on students' academic pathways and their social, financial, health, and emotional well-being. The authors' exploration of the true costs of academics, living expenses, and student services leads them to conclude that current college policies and practices do not support low-income and otherwise marginalized students' well-being or success. To counter this, they suggest that reform efforts should begin by asking value-based questions about the goals of public higher education, and end by crafting class-responsive policies. They propose three tools that policymakers can use to do this work, and steps that every person can take to revitalize public support for public education, equity-producing policies, and democratic participation in the public arena.

Educating children and adolescents in public schools about sex is a deeply inflammatory act in the United States. Since the 1980s, intense political and cultural battles have been waged between believers in abstinence until marriage and advocates for comprehensive sex education. In "The Sex Education Debates", Nancy Kendall upends conventional thinking about these battles by bringing the school and community realities of sex education to life through the diverse voices of students, teachers, administrators, and activists. Drawing on ethnographic research in five states, Kendall reveals important differences and surprising commonalities shared by purported antagonists in the sex education wars, and she illuminates the unintended consequences these protracted battles have, especially on teachers and students. Showing that the lessons that most students, teachers, and parents take away from these battles are antithetical to the long-term health of American democracy, she argues for shifting the measure of sex education success away from pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection rates. Instead, she argues, the debates should focus on a broader set of social and democratic consequences, such as what students learn about themselves as sexual beings and civic actors, and how sex education programming affects school-community relations.