Anthony Jack

“It’s one thing to graduate with a degree from an elite institution, and another thing to graduate with the social capital to activate that degree,” Anthony explains. In many ways, rather than close the wealth gap, campus culture at elite schools further alienates poor students by making them feel like they don’t belong. To challenge these deeply ingrained social, cultural, and economic disparities on campus, we must first begin to question what we take for granted. Anthony reveals how organizations—from administrators and association organizers, to educators and student activists—can ask the right questions and bridge the gap.

In addition to The Privileged Poor, Anthony is the author of Class Dismissed: When Colleges Ignore Inequality and Students Pay the Price. He explores why colleges were so unprepared to support their most vulnerable students when racial unrest and a global health crisis gripped the world, and more importantly, how we can move forward. He offers practical frameworks that colleges and workplaces alike can use to foster belonging, success, and opportunity for all students and employees. Ibram X. Kendi, #1 New York Times bestselling author of How to Be an Antiracist, calls Class Dismissed “exemplary.” In a starred review, Kirkus calls it “sobering, well supported, and trenchantly reported. A compulsively readable, powerfully argued book.” It has also received high praise from The National Review, The American Conservative Magazine, and Commentary Magazine, as well as Science, Harvard Magazine, and more.

Anthony’s research has been cited by The New York Times, the Boston Globe, The Atlantic, The Huffington Post, The National Review, The Washington Post, American RadioWorks, WBUR, and MPR. His book, The Privileged Poor, was named the 2018 recipient of the Thomas J. Wilson Memorial Prize by Harvard University Press.