Yalie filmmaker scrutinizes the Ivory Tower

A trillion dollars of student debt. Higher price increases for college tuition than for any other good or service. College grads moving back in with their parents for years on end, struggling to repay loans while working low-paying service jobs.

These are the backdrop for Ivory Tower, a new documentary by Andrew Rossi ’95 that asks the question: “Is college worth the cost?”

Rossi, whose last project was Page One—a documentary about the New York Times in crisis—sees the two subjects as similar.

“The idea was to find another great cultural institution that’s at a moment of crossroads and trying to address how it needs to change itself from the bottom up,” he tells Newsweek. “I think there’s a similar sense of urgency and crisis.”

The film “gets to the bottom” of skyrocketing tuition costs while also uncovering “different approaches to higher education, where experimentation is working and kids are learning—without going bankrupt,” the Washington Post says.

Rossi also examines the party-never-stops culture of some campuses, pointing out that it’s especially harmful for disadvantaged students who don’t have a cushion if their academic performance suffers.

“I think it’s important to challenge that sort of gauzy, nostalgic idea of college,” he says. (“Bright College Years,” anyone?)

Ivory Tower, for which Rossi is the director, writer and coproducer, premiered at Sundance in January and opened in theaters on June 13.

___________________________________________

The Yale Alumni Magazine is published by Yale Alumni Publications Inc., an alumni-based nonprofit that is not run by Yale University. Its content does not necessarily reflect the views of the university administration.