This Wednesday, November 18, UWM AAUP is delighted to welcome Dr. Sara Goldrick-Rab to campus as a part of the statewide Wisconsin Idea in Crisis Series. Dr. Goldrick-Rab is a Professor of Sociology and Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the Founding Director of the Wisconsin HOPE Lab. Launched in 2013, the Wisconsin Harvesting Opportunities for Higher Education (HOPE) Lab is the nation’s first and only laboratory for translational research working to improve equitable outcomes in postsecondary education and make college more affordable for students.

Dr. Goldrick-Rab’s own research has included a focus on Wisconsin students, and her studies examining the effectiveness of financial aid and other strategies aimed at increasing college enrollment and graduation rates among marginalized student populations have allowed her to work with students from Milwaukee Public Schools, the Madison Metropolitan School District, the Wisconsin Technical College System, and the University of Wisconsin System. Her leadership in the field has led to her expert testimony before the United States Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions and elsewhere at the state a national levels, and it has brought her numerous awards and recognitions, including being ranked this year among the top thirty most influential U.S. educational policy scholars by Education Week. Along with numerous articles, book chapters, policy reports, and other writing for both academics and the broader public, she is the co-author of Putting Poor People to Work: How the Work-First Idea Eroded College Access for the Poor; the co-editor of Reinventing Financial Aid: Charting a New Course to College Affordability; and the author of Paying the Price: College Costs and the Betrayal of the American Dream, forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press in 2016.

Please join us this Wednesday, November 18, at 3:00 p.m. in Greene Hall on the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus for Dr. Sara Goldrick-Rab’s talk, Paying the Price: College Affordability and the Future of Wisconsin Public Higher Education. The event is free and open to all!

This post is by Kristin Pitt, Associate Professor in the Department of French, Italian and Comparative Literature at UWM.