Download or read book Higher Education in America written by Derek Bok and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-03-22 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sweeping assessment of the state of higher education today from former Harvard president Derek Bok Higher Education in America is a landmark work--a comprehensive and authoritative analysis of the current condition of our colleges and universities from former Harvard president Derek Bok, one of the nation's most respected education experts. Sweepingly ambitious in scope, this is a deeply informed and balanced assessment of the many strengths as well as the weaknesses of American higher education today. At a time when colleges and universities have never been more important to the lives and opportunities of students or to the progress and prosperity of the nation, Bok provides a thorough examination of the entire system, public and private, from community colleges and small liberal arts colleges to great universities with their research programs and their medical, law, and business schools. Drawing on the most reliable studies and data, he determines which criticisms of higher education are unfounded or exaggerated, which are issues of genuine concern, and what can be done to improve matters. Some of the subjects considered are long-standing, such as debates over the undergraduate curriculum and concerns over rising college costs. Others are more recent, such as the rise of for-profit institutions and massive open online courses (MOOCs). Additional topics include the quality of undergraduate education, the stagnating levels of college graduation, the problems of university governance, the strengths and weaknesses of graduate and professional education, the environment for research, and the benefits and drawbacks of the pervasive competition among American colleges and universities. Offering a rare survey and evaluation of American higher education as a whole, this book provides a solid basis for a fresh public discussion about what the system is doing right, what it needs to do better, and how the next quarter century could be made a period of progress rather than decline.

Download or read book Between Citizens and the State written by Christopher P. Loss and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book tracks the dramatic outcomes of the federal government's growing involvement in higher education between World War I and the 1970s, and the conservative backlash against that involvement from the 1980s onward. Using cutting-edge analysis, Christopher Loss recovers higher education's central importance to the larger social and political history of the United States in the twentieth century, and chronicles its transformation into a key mediating institution between citizens and the state. Framed around the three major federal higher education policies of the twentieth century--the 1944 GI Bill, the 1958 National Defense Education Act, and the 1965 Higher Education Act--the book charts the federal government's various efforts to deploy education to ready citizens for the national, bureaucratized, and increasingly global world in which they lived. Loss details the myriad ways in which academic leaders and students shaped, and were shaped by, the state's shifting political agenda as it moved from a preoccupation with economic security during the Great Depression, to national security during World War II and the Cold War, to securing the rights of African Americans, women, and other previously marginalized groups during the 1960s and '70s. Along the way, Loss reappraises the origins of higher education's current-day diversity regime, the growth of identity group politics, and the privatization of citizenship at the close of the twentieth century. At a time when people's faith in government and higher education is being sorely tested, this book sheds new light on the close relations between American higher education and politics.

Download or read book American Higher Education in Crisis written by Goldie Blumenstyk and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Disinvestment by states has driven up tuition prices, and student debt has reached an all-time high. Americans are questioning the worth of a college education, even as studies show how important it is to economic and social mobility

Download or read book A History of American Higher Education written by John R. Thelin and published by Johns Hopkins University Press. This book was released on 2019-04-02 with total page 555 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Anyone studying the history of this institution in America must read Thelin's classic text, which has distinguished itself as the most wide-ranging and engaging account of the origins and evolution of America's institutions of higher learning.

Download or read book American Higher Education in the Twenty First Century written by Philip G. Altbach and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2005-02-25 with total page 572 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new edition explores current issues of central importance to the academy: leadership, accountability, access, finance, technology, academic freedom, the canon, governance, and race. Chapters also deal with key constituencies -- students and faculty -- in the context of a changing academic environment.

Download or read book Equity and Excellence in American Higher Education written by William G. Bowen and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 200? with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thomas Jefferson once stated that the foremost goal of American education must be to nurture the "natural aristocracy of talent and virtue." Although in many ways American higher education has fulfilled Jefferson's vision by achieving a widespread level of excellence, it has not achieved the objective of equity implicit in Jefferson's statement. In Equity and Excellence in American Higher Education, William G. Bowen, Martin A. Kurzweil, and Eugene M. Tobin explore the cause for this divide. Employing historical research, examination of the most recent social science and public policy scholarship, international comparisons, and detailed empirical analysis of rich new data, the authors study the intersection between "excellence" and "equity" objectives. Beginning with a time line tracing efforts to achieve equity and excellence in higher education from the American Revolution to the early Cold War years, this narrative reveals the halting, episodic progress in broadening access across the dividing lines of gender, race, religion, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. The authors argue that despite our rhetoric of inclusiveness, a significant number of youth from poor families do not share equal access to America's elite colleges and universities. While America has achieved the highest level of educational attainment of any country, it runs the risk of losing this position unless it can markedly improve the precollegiate preparation of students from racial minorities and lower-income families. After identifying the "equity" problem at the national level and studying nineteen selective colleges and universities, the authors propose a set of potential actions to be taken at federal, state, local, and institutional levels. With recommendations ranging from reform of the admissions process, to restructuring of federal financial aid and state support of public universities, to addressing the various precollegiate obstacles that disadvantaged students face at home and in school, the authors urge all selective colleges and universities to continue race-sensitive admissions policies, while urging the most selective (and privileged) institutions to enroll more well-qualified students from families with low socioeconomic status.

Download or read book The California Idea and American Higher Education written by John Aubrey Douglass and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2007-01-03 with total page 618 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout the twentieth century, public universities were established across the United States at a dizzying pace, transforming the scope and purpose of American higher education. Leading the way was California, with its internationally renowned network of public colleges and universities. This book is the first comprehensive history of California's pioneering efforts to create an expansive and high-quality system of public higher education. The author traces the social, political, and economic forces that established and funded an innovative, uniquely tiered, and geographically dispersed network of public campuses in California. This influential model for higher education, "The California Idea," created an organizational structure that combined the promise of broad access to public higher education with a desire to develop institutions of high academic quality. Following the story from early statehood through to the politics and economic forces that eventually resulted in the 1960 California Master Plan for Higher Education, The California Idea and American Higher Education offers a carefully crafted history of public higher education.

Download or read book A History of American Higher Education written by John R. Thelin and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2011-11-15 with total page 499 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Colleges and universities are among the most cherished—and controversial—institutions in the United States. In this updated edition of A History of American Higher Education, John R. Thelin offers welcome perspective on the triumphs and crises of this highly influential sector in American life. Thelin’s work has distinguished itself as the most wide-ranging and engaging account of the origins and evolution of America's institutions of higher learning. This edition brings the discussion of perennial hot-button issues such as big-time sports programs up to date and addresses such current areas of contention as the changing role of governing boards and the financial challenges posed by the economic downturn.

Download or read book The Shaping of American Higher Education written by Arthur M. Cohen and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2009-12-09 with total page 661 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE SHAPING OF AMERICAN HIGHER EDUCATION SECOND EDITION When the first edition of The Shaping of American Higher Education was published it was lauded for its historical perspective and in-depth coverage of current events that provided an authoritative, comprehensive account of??the history of higher education in the United States. As in the first edition, this book tracks trends and important issues in eight key areas: student access, faculty professionalization, curricular expansion, institutional growth, governance, finance, research, and outcomes. Thoroughly revised and updated, the volume is filled with critical new data; recent information from specialized sources on faculty, student admissions, and management practices; and an entirely new section that explores privatization, corporatization, and accountability from the mid-1990s to the present. This second edition also includes end-of-chapter questions for guidance, reflection, and study.???? "Cohen and Kisker do the nation's colleges and universities a much needed service by authoring this volume. The highly regarded histories of American higher education have become badly dated. They ignore the last quarter century when American higher education was transformed. This volume provides comprehensive information on that era." — Art Levine, president, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, and author, When Hope and Fear Collide: A Portrait of Today's College Student "The second edition of The Shaping of American Higher Education is a treasure trove of information and insight. Cohen and Kisker provide us with astute and straightforward analysis and commentary on our past, present, and likely future. This book is invaluable to those seeking to go to the heart of the issues and challenges confronting higher education." — Judith S. Eaton, president, Council for Higher Education Accreditation "Arthur Cohen and his collaborator have now updated his superb history of American higher education. It remains masterful, authoritative, comprehensive, and incisive, and guarantees that this work will stand as the classic required resource for all who want to understand where higher education came from and where it is going. The new material gives a wise and nuanced perspective on the current crisis-driven transformations of the higher education industry." — John Lombardi, president, Louisiana State University System "The Shaping of American Higher Education is distinguished by its systematic approach, comprehensive coverage, and extensive treatment of the modern era, including the first years of the twenty-first century. In this second edition, Arthur Cohen??and Carrie Kisker are??especially adept at bringing historical perspective and a balanced viewpoint to controversial issues of the current era." — Roger L. Geiger, distinguished professor, The Pennsylvania State University, and author, Knowledge and Money

Download or read book Improving Quality in American Higher Education written by Richard Arum and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-05-02 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An ambitious, comprehensive reimagining of 21st century higher education Improving Quality in American Higher Education outlines the fundamental concepts and competencies society demands from today's college graduates, and provides a vision of the future for students, faculty, and administrators. Based on a national, multidisciplinary effort to define and measure learning outcomes—the Measuring College Learning project—this book identifies 'essential concepts and competencies' for six disciplines. These essential concepts and competencies represent efforts towards articulating a consensus among faculty in biology, business, communication, economics, history, and sociology—disciplines that account for nearly 40 percent of undergraduate majors in the United States. Contributions from thought leaders in higher education, including Ira Katznelson, George Kuh, and Carol Geary Schneider, offer expert perspectives and persuasive arguments for the need for greater clarity, intentionality, and quality in U.S. higher education. College faculty are our best resource for improving the quality of undergraduate education. This book offers a path forward based on faculty perspectives nationwide: Clarify program structure and aims Articulate high-quality learning goals Rigorously measure student progress Prioritize higher order competencies and disciplinarily grounded conceptual understandings A culmination of over two years of efforts by faculty and association leaders from six disciplines, this book distills the national conversation into a delineated set of fundamental ideas and practices, and advocates for the development and use of rigorous assessment tools that are valued by faculty, students, and society. Improving Quality in American Higher Education brings faculty voices to the fore of the conversation and offers an insightful look at the state of higher education, and a realistic strategy for better serving our students.

Download or read book Financing American Higher Education in the Era of Globalization written by William Zumeta and published by Harvard Education Press. This book was released on 2021-02-23 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This ambitious book grows out of the realization that a convergence of economic, demographic, and political forces in the early twenty-first century requires a fundamental reexamination of the financing of American higher education. The authors identify and address basic issues and trends that cut across the sectors of higher education, focusing on such questions as how much higher education the country needs for individual opportunity and for economic viability in the future; how responsibility for paying for it is currently allocated; and how financing higher education should be addressed in the future.

Download or read book American Higher Education in the Twenty First Century written by Philip G. Altbach and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2005-02-25 with total page 572 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This new edition explores current issues of central importance to the academy: leadership, accountability, access, finance, technology, academic freedom, the canon, governance, and race. Chapters also deal with key constituencies -- students and faculty -- in the context of a changing academic environment.

Download or read book Higher Education Accountability written by Robert Kelchen and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2018-02-27 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beginning with the earliest efforts to regulate schools, the author reveals the rationale behind accountability and outlines the historical development of how US federal and state policies, accreditation practices, private-sector interests, and internal requirements have become so important to institutional success and survival

Download or read book The History of American Higher Education written by Roger L. Geiger and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-11-09 with total page 585 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An authoritative one-volume history of the origins and development of American higher education This book tells the compelling saga of American higher education from the founding of Harvard College in 1636 to the outbreak of World War II. The most in-depth and authoritative history of the subject available, The History of American Higher Education traces how colleges and universities were shaped by the shifting influences of culture, the emergence of new career opportunities, and the unrelenting advancement of knowledge. Roger Geiger, arguably today's leading historian of American higher education, vividly describes how colonial colleges developed a unified yet diverse educational tradition capable of weathering the social upheaval of the Revolution as well as the evangelical fervor of the Second Great Awakening. He shows how the character of college education in different regions diverged significantly in the years leading up to the Civil War—for example, the state universities of the antebellum South were dominated by the sons of planters and their culture—and how higher education was later revolutionized by the land-grant movement, the growth of academic professionalism, and the transformation of campus life by students. By the beginning of the Second World War, the standard American university had taken shape, setting the stage for the postwar education boom. Breathtaking in scope and rich in narrative detail, The History of American Higher Education is the most comprehensive single-volume history of the origins and development of of higher education in the United States.

Download or read book Designing the New American University written by Michael M. Crow and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2015-03-15 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A radical blueprint for reinventing American higher education. America’s research universities consistently dominate global rankings but may be entrenched in a model that no longer accomplishes their purposes. With their multiple roles of discovery, teaching, and public service, these institutions represent the gold standard in American higher education, but their evolution since the nineteenth century has been only incremental. The need for a new and complementary model that offers broader accessibility to an academic platform underpinned by knowledge production is critical to our well-being and economic competitiveness. Michael M. Crow, president of Arizona State University and an outspoken advocate for reinventing the public research university, conceived the New American University model when he moved from Columbia University to Arizona State in 2002. Following a comprehensive reconceptualization spanning more than a decade, ASU has emerged as an international academic and research powerhouse that serves as the foundational prototype for the new model. Crow has led the transformation of ASU into an egalitarian institution committed to academic excellence, inclusiveness to a broad demographic, and maximum societal impact. In Designing the New American University, Crow and coauthor William B. Dabars—a historian whose research focus is the American research university—examine the emergence of this set of institutions and the imperative for the new model, the tenets of which may be adapted by colleges and universities, both public and private. Through institutional innovation, say Crow and Dabars, universities are apt to realize unique and differentiated identities, which maximize their potential to generate the ideas, products, and processes that impact quality of life, standard of living, and national economic competitiveness. Designing the New American University will ignite a national discussion about the future evolution of the American research university.

Download or read book For the Common Good written by Charles Dorn and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2017-06-06 with total page 478 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are colleges and universities in a period of unprecedented disruption? Is a bachelor's degree still worth the investment? Are the humanities coming to an end? What, exactly, is higher education good for? In For the Common Good, Charles Dorn challenges the rhetoric of America's so-called crisis in higher education by investigating two centuries of college and university history. From the community college to the elite research university—in states from California to Maine—Dorn engages a fundamental question confronted by higher education institutions ever since the nation's founding: Do colleges and universities contribute to the common good? Tracking changes in the prevailing social ethos between the late eighteenth and early twenty-first centuries, Dorn illustrates the ways in which civic-mindedness, practicality, commercialism, and affluence influenced higher education's dedication to the public good. Each ethos, long a part of American history and tradition, came to predominate over the others during one of the four chronological periods examined in the book, informing the character of institutional debates and telling the definitive story of its time. For the Common Good demonstrates how two hundred years of political, economic, and social change prompted transformation among colleges and universities—including the establishment of entirely new kinds of institutions—and refashioned higher education in the United States over time in essential and often vibrant ways.

Download or read book American Higher Education Since World War II written by Roger L. Geiger and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-05-25 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A masterful history of the postwar transformation of American higher education In the decades after World War II, as government and social support surged and enrollments exploded, the role of colleges and universities in American society changed dramatically. Roger Geiger provides an in-depth history of this remarkable transformation, taking readers from the GI Bill and the postwar expansion of higher education to the social upheaval of the 1960s and 1970s, desegregation and coeducation, and the ascendancy of the modern research university. He demonstrates how growth has been the defining feature of modern higher education, but how each generation since the war has pursued it for different reasons. Sweeping in scope and richly insightful, this groundbreaking book provides the context we need to understand the complex issues facing our colleges and universities today, from rising inequality and skyrocketing costs to deficiencies in student preparedness and lax educational standards.