Tressie McMillan Cottom

Tressie McMillan Cottom is an American writer, sociologist, and professor. She is currently an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Information and Library Science (SILS), and is also an affiliate of the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life (CITAP) at UNC-Chapel Hill. She is also an opinion columnist at ''The New York Times.''

She was formerly an associate professor of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University and a faculty associate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. McMillan Cottom is the author of '' Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy'' and '' Thick: And Other Essays'', a co-editor of ''For-Profit Universities'' and ''Digital Sociologies'', an essayist whose work has appeared in ''The Atlantic'', '' Slate'', ''The New York Times'', and ''The Washington Post'', and co-host of the podcast ''Hear to Slay'' with author Roxane Gay. She is frequently quoted in print and television media as an academic expert in inequality and American higher education. In 2020, McMillan Cottom was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in recognition of her work "at the confluence of race, gender, education, and digital technology."

Early life and education

McMillan Cottom was born in Harlem and raised in Winston-Salem and Charlotte, North Carolina. Her mother was a member of the Black Panther Party in Winston-Salem. Before completing her undergraduate degree, McMillan Cottom worked as an enrollment officer at a technical college, a job that would inform her later research and her first book. In 2009, McMillan Cottom received her B.A. from North Carolina Central University, a public HBCU, in English and political science.

While pursuing her Ph.D. at Emory University, McMillan Cottom worked as a visiting fellow at the University of California, Davis Center for Poverty Research and as a Microsoft Research Social Media Collective intern. She also wrote the biweekly "Counter Narrative" column for '' Slate'' magazine. She earned her PhD in sociology from Emory University in 2015, with a dissertation on the legitimacy of for-profit higher education institutions.

Career

In 2015 McMillan Cottom was appointed as an assistant professor of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University and a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. She was awarded tenure and promoted to the rank of associate professor in 2019. In 2020, she left Virginia Commonwealth University to join the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Public persona

Before the publication of her book '' Lower Ed'', McMillan Cottom was known primarily as an essayist and academic expert on issues of inequality, higher education, and race. She writes from the analytical perspective of intersectionality. Her essays have advocated for reparations to African Americans, argued that racism rather than political correctness is the real threat to university campus life, and suggested that black girls are treated as more adult than white girls. She is a contributing editor at ''Dissent'' and one of ''HuffPosts commissioned opinion columnists. In addition to her own writing, McMillan Cottom has been featured in ''The New York Times'', National Public Radio (NPR), ''Harvard Educational Review'', ''Mother Jones'', '' Inside Higher Ed'', and ''The Daily Show''.

Drawing on her experience dealing with controversy as a public intellectual, McMillan Cottom wrote a guide for academics who come under public attack from organized digital campaigns. In 2019, McMillan Cottom and Roxane Gay launched a podcast called ''Hear to Slay'' to "amplify the voices and work of black women". McMillan Cottom received the Public Understanding of Sociology Award from the American Sociological Association in 2020.

''Lower Ed''

McMillan Cottom's 2017 book ''Lower Ed'' is an analysis of the for-profit educational sector from the perspective of students trying to navigate a "risky and highly variable" economy. ''Lower Ed'' is based on interviews with students and college executives, analysis of for-profit college promotional materials, and McMillan Cottom's own experience working as an enrollment officer at two for-profit institutions. The main finding is that rising emphasis on credentialism in the American job market pushes students to make riskier but individually rational trade-offs in order to obtain educational credentials.

According to McMillan Cottom, for-profit institutions are generally more expensive than non-profit institutions and aggressively market to low-income and working poor students who qualify for the most financial aid, but students are making considered choices about their futures and are not simply being duped by marketing. ''Lower Ed'' suggests that policies intended to constrain the marketing behavior of for-profit institutions will not address the underlying political economy issue, and may increase inequalities, especially gender inequalities, in the distribution of valued educational credentials and jobs. ''Harvard Educational Review'' described ''Lower Ed'' as "theoretically provocative, empirically rich, and enjoyable to read".

''Thick''

McMillan Cottom's book '' Thick: And Other Essays'' was published by The New Press

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