Center on Assets, Education, and Inclusion

Reid Cramer, Director, New America

"In an era of increasing inequality, ensuring access to a high-quality education can be a great equalizer. But an over-reliance on student loans has created new obstacles in the form of rising costs and debilitating debt. In their paradigm-shifting critique of our financial aid system, Elliott and Lewis explore the potential of elevating the role of savings and assets. Their promising and forward-looking alternatives will undoubtedly shake up the policy conversation."

Thomas M. Shapiro, Director, Institute on Assets and Social Policy, The Heller School for Social Policy, Brandeis University

"Higher education is a path to economic mobility and America’s global competitiveness. Elliott and Lewis brilliantly demonstrate how broken that pathway is and how its brokenness warps aspirations. Their book provides a blueprint to reinvigorating the educational pathway for the 21st century."

Michael A. Fletcher, National economics correspondent, The Washington Post

"Higher education, once seen as the great equalizer, too often leaves students on divergent tracks: one leading to success for the haves, the other to bitter disappointment and big debt for the have-nots. This new book dares to imagine a day when society invests more in needy students before they go to college, so they can borrow less and have more once they finish." 

Martha J. Kanter, Distinguished Visiting Professor of Higher Education and Senior Fellow at New York University

"Elliott and Lewis have given us an important book. . . . [They] remind us that economic mobility depends on federal, state, and institutional systems working in concert to achieve the vision of prosperous families in a vibrant society . . . and encourage us to take bold steps forward on a new path to the American Dream."