CISS Affiliate Anthony Jack Says Colleges Do Not Offer Sufficient Social Supports
As an Amherst College freshman in the early 2000s, Anthony Abraham Jack had to deal with a problem that never blips affluent students’ radars: the closing of the dining hall during spring break. Coming from a low-income Miami family, Jack couldn’t afford the plane fare home and was staying on campus. How would he eat? He lucked out, getting a job at the college’s gym to earn money for meals—and for his mother, who asked him for whatever he could spare to help pay bills back home.
“While Amherst had opened its doors to welcome poor students like me, they forgot to keep the doors open for those of us who couldn’t afford to leave,” Jack writes in his new book Class Dismissed (Princeton University Press).
To read more, visit THE BRINK, where this article originally appeared on September 23, 2024.