She laughs, and then raises her voice to be heard over the sounds of R&B crooner Jaheim soulfully entreating his lover for one more round of romance, the upbeat music thrumming through a speaker wedged in a corner of Croaker’s Spot on Hull Street. “That question suggests that I shouldn’t be in those spaces,” she says, eyebrows raised. Though it was not her first television appearance (she’s been on “The Daily Show With Trevor Noah” twice, among other programs), McMillan Cottom says some people asked if she was “surprised or intimidated” to find herself on the small screen and in congressional chambers. An associate professor of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University, McMillan Cottom traveled to Washington, D.C., in April to warn Congress about the ballooning problem in testimony that was broadcast nationally. These queries are at the heart of Tressie McMillan Cottom’s 2017 book, “ Lower Ed: The Troubling Rise of For-Profit Colleges in the New Economy” (The New Press, 2017). In May, when technology billionaire Robert Johnson relieved the Morehouse College class of 2019’s $40 million dollars of student loan debt, the country first applauded - and then started asking questions: Why is college so expensive, and is it unfairly so?
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