Honorable Mention for 2018 Delta Kappa Gamma Educators Book Award


This powerful book explores how institutions of higher education can successfully serve students who have experienced poverty, toxic stress, trauma, or abuse. Introducing a new concept called “lasticity,” Karen Gross offers an approach to addressing inequities that focuses on the many positive attributes these students have acquired due to their low socioeconomic status (SES) and other life factors. Drawing on her experience as a college president, the book outlines practical steps that institutions can take to create structures of support and opportunity that build reciprocal trust. Students must trust their institutions and professors, professors must trust their students, and eventually students must learn to trust themselves. Breakaway Learners is must reading for anyone interested in closing the gap between low-SES and high-SES students in today’s colleges and universities. The strategies presented can also be adapted to the K–12 setting. Visit the book’s website at breakawaylearners.com.


Book Features:




Addresses flagging efforts to improve the educational progress of students who have experienced poverty, toxic stress, or abuse.
Focuses on the institutions that serve students as opposed to efforts to fix failing students.
Provides concrete strategies and describes their actual impact on individuals and institutions.
Offers strategies that can be replicated and scaled and can be adapted to the K–12 educational landscape.
Includes images, some of which were created by a breakaway learner.