Perry Kate Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Lightdeossk Captivating movie !

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Maidexpl Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

old-dude This movie was on CNN tonight and it was a heck of a lot more informative than another two hours on CNN of what "might happen" to Bill Cosby's career. Or "when" the grand jury MIGHT decide in Ferguson. This movie to me was very informative and passionate too. The subject of rising college tuitions and what to do about it is very tough. And good points were brought out pro and con. The sad part is a normal kid like myself back in the (gulp) 70s could GO TO COLLEGE if the desire was there. You could work your way through college and even student loans were within reason. It is sad that my generation has failed miserably to afford the same opportunity. Which brings me to the one part of the movie that was blatantly missing. WHY? They skimmed over . . .no ignored completely the burning question of cause. How on earth can tuition for ONE semester go from $200 to $25,000 in less than 30 years?

maxskyfan-9 PlotFirst the documentary follows one disadvantaged black student from a bad neighborhood get into Harvard for free and then it wonders why getting a good education for everybody else isn't just as easy. It touches back on this issue later on when a free college tries to move to a profit system and then comes down hard on an online system of education when they fall short of perfection. Surely the director must have been blinded to the advancements that have been made in this area and the scores of students that have been helped. And then I was sorry to see that little was mentioned about the cycle of rising school costs. There was some focus on it as to say it was there, but they didn't address it in any way to come to any conclusions in order to fix it. It was like watching a bull navigating a china shop without breaking through any issue the government had a role in. The documentary illustrates that the cost of tuition have dramatically increased over the years and well above the costs of other commodities, only there were no answers and no one in the here and now to hold responsible. Funny how Obama got no blame in this mess like he wasn't around to do anything about it, instead they dig up Reagan because he like Milton Friedman believed colleges need to be pay for by someone. It doesn't make sense that people who don't go to college should pay for the ones that do go to college, which is probably why this documentary only hinted at that idea. The underline question that is in play here is why our nation's students have so much debt yet that ponderance is kept at bay by a ten foot pole. Without much to say the narration swings around to the black student they started out with. He isn't doing well in any of his classes, yet he explains while driving through his rundown neighborhood that he is determined to finish his college because without it he would have nothing.Character DevelopmentThe narrative is like a leaf in the wind. There is no rhyme or reason to its direction, only simple ends up where it started.ActingNo Acting. This was a documentary.OverviewThere was only the very basic of production values. Like something that you would find on most TV shows. The only plus here would be no commercials, but to tell you the truth if I was watching this documentary on TV and was forced to watch a commercial I would probably watch something else. Since this documentary was produced by CNN I think it is a good bet that you will find it on their network before long anyway so it is probably not worth viewing it until then and subsequently it might be too much of a bother to drive to the local movie theater to see a film that doesn't ask any hard questions and avoids searching for any answers. But if you want to watch a film and walk out knowing less than you already do than this documentary will be the one you have been waiting for.

jdesando "Opportunity means making college more affordable." Barack ObamaIf you want to know why the cost of higher education has spiraled out of control (over 1000% since the late '70's), then watch the informative but flawed documentary Ivory Tower because director Andrew Rossi doesn't have a clue either. Or rather, he has not yet put together cogent reasons (administrator salaries? faculty salaries? loans for new buildings?) or new solutions—he presents elements of each with no conclusions. The cost just is.Rossi does show the costs are getting higher yet offers no solutions except the ones we already know: Deep Springs College in Death Valley is a free, all-male work-study institution and Spelman College for black women guarantees them a degree. However, the other 4000 institutions in our country are so diverse and complex that none of them is able to avoid the huge cost to students, even with generous financial aid.Because the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates famously dropped out to form their colossal businesses, support organizations like Palo Alto's Thiel Fellowship will pay students the likes of $100K to "uncollege" and become entrepreneurs. All very good, but most of us do not have the genius of those great drop outs, or anywhere near it, to form significant businesses. These are the strategies Rossi offers indirectly as his thesis for the future. Yet, the learning rate of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) is disappointingly low, and sizeable budgets at a variety of campuses have disappointed even progressives with lower than desired graduation levels. The use of online technology promises relief from costs and a wider effect on the population. What Rossi fails to focus in on is the richness of the face to face experience, which to this former university professor and administrator is a major reason to get in debt: Never at any other time in most lives can students meet such diverse people and engage in such heady dialogue to introduce new ways of thinking and expression. In that experience, we come down from our ivory towers to engage the real world. We can't achieve that by staying away: "There are a lot of ideas being floated to get these problems under control: value report cards for universities; pay-it-forward tuition plans; a renewed focus on non-collegiate higher education. For now, however, tuitions continue to rise and students continue to take on back-breaking debt to cover the bills." Bruce Watson

jack_gott 90 minutes of children whining "SOMEONE ELSE SHOULD PAY FOR MY LIFE". A pathetic, disjointed, chaotic mess. An 8th grader with an iPhone could make a better movie. Watching students stage a sit-in because the college threatens to make them pay tuition for the first time (EGAD THE HORROR) is the essence of first-world infantilized narcissism. There is no narrative to the film, no beginning-middle-end. It's as if the director passed around a camera and asked everybody to "talk about education stuff for 5 minutes". At best, it's a (horrible) campaign commercial for Elizabeth Warren, as is the website. There is no 'there' there. A convoluted and inept political hack job. Save your $15.