David Kirp is a professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, where he received the university’s coveted “outstanding teacher” award; a contributing writer at The New York Times, where he continues to publish articles on higher education; the author of seventeen books, many of them award-winners; and a public speaker, having given talks on on four continents. Additionally, he is a Fellow of the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Sciences as well as the National Academy of Education. A policy maven, David has advised governments in the U.S. and abroad, and he served on President Obama’s education policy team during the 2008 transition.
His new book, The College Dropout Scandal, is both a searing indictment of college administrators who seem indifferent to whether their students graduate and a vivid demonstration that colleges can effectively confront the dropout crisis. Improbable Scholars, his book preceding The College Dropout Scandal, received the 2014 Outstanding Book Award from the American Educational Research Association.