Ivory Tower

Ivory Tower, the latest documentary from director Andrew Rossi is a frightening movie about the high price of higher education. This movie will make you think, it will upset you, and it will enlighten you on what the colleges and universities across the country are doing that puts students and families in serious debt. Because I loved this movie, and because I walked out happy that I am not burdened by the staggering and suffocating debt that parents get into trying to get their kids a really fancy diploma, I have to give Ivory Tower three buckets of Killer Korn.









I don't usually do documentaries but when I saw this trailer I knew I HAD to see this film. The trailer grabbed me and it wouldn't let me go until it ended. And when I left the theater I felt this movie should be seen by EVERYONE FOR FREE! It should be on youtube or some other platform where it can be viewed for free because it needs to be. Andrew takes you on a tour of certain universities that have campuses that look like small cities. That explains to a certain extent why schools cost so much and it taught me something I didn't know anything about. Ronald Reagan is almost single handedly responsible for the lack of federal funding for higher learning institutions which then made those schools raise tuition costs. He thought it wasn't the federal governments responsibility to help pay for education, and ran for President on that platform and won. That seems to have been the death knell for kids whose parents couldn't afford to pay the rising tuition prices.

This film follows certain story lines of a few kids and they are incredibly compelling and it really rounds this movie out. It also adds a very provocative perspective on staying in college, dropping out of college, and to whether or not college is even necessary. Ivory Tower shows you a free college for men only called Deep Springs College, it compares that college to Playboy's choice for number one party school for 2014, Arizona State University. Tower also brings up the occupation of Cooper Union by the students who fought to keep the school from charging tuition back in 2013. Ivory Tower will have you scratching your head as to how this industry hasn't imploded in on itself yet and how there is still a message that brainwashes both kids and parents alike about how college will lead kids to a better life. There is no certainty of that as Tower shows a graduate with a Masters applying for a job at Starbucks, but what college will definitely ensure is debt. Serious, soul crushing debt that Starbucks won't help anyone get out from under...EVER!

See Ivory Tower if you have kids or you know someone who has kids who are almost at that age where colleges are talked about. Then direct those kids as fast as you can to Peter Thiel and I'll see you at the theater.

MarkEricEntertainment