Description
And the best it is: today America's universities and colleges produce the most scholarship, earn the most Nobel prizes, hold the largest endowments, and attract the most esteemed students and scholars from around the world. But this was not an inevitability. Weakly funded by the state, American schools in their early years had to rely on student tuition and alumni donations in order to survive. This gave them tremendous autonomy to seek out sources of financial support and pursue unconventional opportunities to ensure their success. As Labaree shows, by striving as much as possible to meet social needs and fulfill individual ambitions, they developed a broad base of political and financial support that, grounded by large undergraduate programs, allowed for the most cutting-edge research and advanced graduate study ever conducted. As a result, American higher education eventually managed to combine a unique mix of the populist, the practical, and the elite in a single complex system.
The answers to today's problems in higher education are not easy, but as this book shows, they shouldn't be: no single person or institution can determine higher education's future. It is something that faculty, administrators, and students-adapting to society's needs-will determine together, just as they have always done.
Book Information
ISBN 9780226637006
Author David F. Labaree
Format Paperback
Page Count 240
Imprint University of Chicago Press
Publisher The University of Chicago Press
Weight(grams) 369g
Dimensions(mm) 23mm * 17mm * 2mm