Frank Bruni: When did college become so cruel?

Paul Tough’s important new book on the broken promises of higher education begins with a chapter that he succeeds in making as suspenseful as the prologue of any serial-killer novel and as heart-rending as the climax of an epic romance. It describes a high school senior who is waiting to hear if she has been accepted at Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania.Her name is Shannen. She’s from a poor family in the Bronx. She has worried so much and worked so hard that she’s u