higher education

n.
Education beyond the secondary level, especially education at the college or university level.

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This entry includes 4 subentries:
African American Colleges
Colleges and Universities
Denominational Colleges
Women's Colleges

African American Colleges

The institutions of higher education currently referred to as the historically black colleges originated in the mid-nineteenth century as a result of the enslavement of African Americans. Because of the numerous slave revolts by literate slaves, literacy was denied most slaves in the South and formal education was prohibited. Throughout the North, free African Americans prior to and after the Civil War had limited opportunities for collegiate education. With the exception of Oberlin College in Ohio, which began admitting blacks in the 1830s, African Americans only sporadically attended a small number of white colleges. Often, blacks who attended white institutions during this period were light in complexion and not always known to be of African descent. As the push for emancipation of slaves became more pronounced in the 1850s and 1860s, several colleges were established to prepare the freed blacks of the North for leadership in the black communities. As with the history of white institutions of higher education, the earliest black colleges maintained preparatory departments and were often colleges in name only for decades.

Northern Black Colleges

Three institutions of higher education were established for black students prior to the Civil War. Each was established by a religious denomination. The Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia was established in 1837 at the behest of a Quaker, Richard Humphreys. Established originally as a school for boys, by the 1850s it had become a prominent coeducational private primary and high school. It moved to Cheyney, Pennsylvania, at the turn of the century and became Cheyney State College by the 1920s.

Lincoln University was also established in Pennsylvania prior to the end of the Civil War. Established by the Presbyterian Church as the Ashmun Institute for black males in 1854, this institution obtained collegiate status before any other founded for black students. The primary mission of Lincoln was to educate ministers to evangelize in Africa and to provide religious leadership to blacks in the United States. In an attempt to produce black leaders and professionals after emancipation, Lincoln established a law school and medical school. However, both closed in 1873. In 1953, the institution became coeducational.

Wilberforce University was established in 1856 by the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Ohio shortly after the founding of Lincoln University. While institutions of education founded for blacks by whites were overwhelmingly single-sex, African Americans believed education important for both men and women and established coeducational institutions. In addition, black-founded colleges employed black faculty and staff of both sexes. For example, Wilberforce employed the well-known Oberlin graduate Mary Church Terrell in 1884 as well as the young Harvard-and German-trained W. E. B. DuBois in his first faculty position in 1894. These institutions offered liberal-arts and professional courses as well as teacher training.

A Federal University

After the legal abolishment of slavery, the federal government through the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands established thousands of schools throughout the South for the newly freed blacks. In addition, in an act of Congress, Howard University was established in 1867 in the nation's capital for the education of youth in the "liberal arts and sciences." The institution was named for General Oliver O. Howard, a Civil War hero and commissioner of the Freedmen's Bureau. In addition to the collegiate department, the university also had a normal department for the training of teachers as well as medical, law, and theology departments. Although identified as a black college, Howard was opened to students regardless of race and nationality. There were white students at the institution from its inception. Throughout its history, Howard University was viewed as the preeminent black institution due to its diverse student body and distinguished faculty and the aforementioned curricular offerings (later to include a school of dentistry as well as Ph.D. programs).

Private Black Colleges

Private black colleges proliferated after the Civil War. Founded primarily by black and white missionary organizations, these institutions varied greatly in quality and size. Those institutions established by the American Missionary Association (AMA), such as Fisk, Tougaloo, Talladega, Dilliard, and Atlanta University, offered the classical liberal arts degrees as well as teacher training and were among the leading institutions of higher education for blacks in the Deep South. The all-male Morehouse College (1867) and female Spelman College (1881) in Atlanta were both founded by the American Baptist Home Mission Society and were leading examples of distinguished single-sex institutions. These institutions, established by New England missionaries, reflected the culture and curriculum of the colleges of that region—classical education and liberal culture.

Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute (1868) and Tuskegee Institute (1881) were made famous by Booker T. Washington. He was a graduate of the former institution and founder of the latter. Washington ignited a heated debate within the black community at the end of the nineteenth century and in the first decade of the twentieth century over the prominence of classical versus industrial education within the curriculum of black colleges. Although both Hampton Institute in Virginia and Tuskegee in Alabama were the preeminent industrial and manual training schools among black colleges, their primary mission was the training of teachers for the common schools of the South.

Private philanthropy played an important role in the shaping of private black colleges and was instrumental in the growth and success of Hampton and Tuskegee Institutes. White and black religious denominations were key in establishing black colleges, but by the dawn of the twentieth century, many industrial philanthropists contributed to black higher education that stressed industrial education, which they believed more practical for the descendants of slaves. Among these supporters were the General Education Board, Anna T. Jeanes Foundation, Phelps-Stokes Fund, Carnegie Foundation, Julius Rosen-wald Foundation, and the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Foundation.

Land Grant Colleges

The Morrill Act of the United States Congress in 1862 provided for use of public taxes to establish public state institutions for each state's agricultural and industrial training but not at the expense of the liberal arts. As a result of segregation in the southern and border states, only three southern states provided for black colleges from this fund. Consequently, Congress passed a second Morrill Act in 1890 that prohibited discrimination with these funds. Thus, to comply with this new act, southern and border states established separate black land grant institutions that stressed vocational rather than academic courses. Seventeen black land grant institutions were established in the southern and border states. These institutions were colleges in name only until well into the twentieth century. A study of black higher education in 1917 noted that only one black land grant college offered college courses at that time. According to James Anderson, the bulk of black higher education was in the black private colleges. He noted that in 1926–1927, some 75 percent of all black college students were enrolled in private institutions.

Conclusion

Because slaves had been denied the right to an education, the building of a school system in the South was of paramount importance. As a result, most black colleges initially stressed teacher training in their curriculum. The preparation of ministers was also an important mission of the black private colleges, as it was for the earliest white colleges. More than 200 institutions were established for the higher education of black people beginning in the mid-nineteenth century, although most of the institutions did not function as true colleges until the illiterate freedmen could obtain a primary education. By the 1940s, only 117 black colleges survived. These primarily private colleges also offered professional education: by the end of World War II, they included two medical schools, three law schools, two schools of social work, two dental schools, two pharmacy schools, one school of journalism, one school of veterinary medicine, two library science schools, and nine schools of nursing.

The federal abolishment of legal segregation in education as a result of major Supreme Court rulings and acts of Congress from the 1950s and 1960s has resulted in black colleges being referred to as "historically" black colleges to reflect the desire to abolish the notion of racially segregated institutions. Due to a court order, black land grant colleges have been required to aggressively recruit white students and provide them with financial incentives to attend historically black public institutions. While nearly three-quarters of all black college students attend predominantly white institutions today, until the later twentieth century the historically black college produced generations of the nation's black leadership, including W. E. B. Du Bois (Fisk University), Mary McLeod Bethune (Scotia Seminary, now Barber-Scotia College), Thurgood Marshall (Lincoln University of Pennsylvania), and Martin Luther King Jr. (Morehouse College). Black college graduates were also the backbone of the segregated schools in the South. While current black college students have many options in terms of higher education, the historically black college's mission to train the leaders of the black community remains one of its central goals.

Bibliography

Anderson, James D. The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860–1935. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988.

Bond, Horace Mann. Education for Freedom: A History of Lincoln University, Pennsylvania. Lincoln University, Pa.: Lincoln University Press, 1976.

Logan, Rayford W. Howard University: The First Hundred Years, 1867–1967. New York: New York University Press, 1969.

Payne, Bishop Daniel A. "The History of the Origin and Development of Wilberforce University." Wilberforce University Archives, circa 1877–1878.

Perkins, Linda M. Fanny Jackson Coppin and the Institute for Colored Youth, 1865–1902. New York: Garland, 1987.

Work, Monroe N. Negro Yearbook and Annual Encyclopedia of the Negro, 1941–46. Tuskegee, Ala.: Tuskegee Institute, 1946.

Colleges and Universities

The widespread system of American colleges and universities began modestly in 1636 with the founding of Harvard College (now Harvard University), which began classroom instruction in 1638. The other colonial colleges were the College of William and Mary, which was chartered in 1693 but began classes only in 1729; the Collegiate School (Yale University), founded in 1701; the College of New Jersey (Princeton University), chartered in 1746, with instruction in 1747; King's College (Columbia University), founded in 1754; the College, Academy, and Charitable School of Philadelphia (University of Pennsylvania), chartered in 1755 after collegiate classes began in 1754; the College of Rhode Island (Brown University), chartered in 1764, with instruction a year later; Queen's College (Rutgers—the State University), chartered in 1766, with instruction in 1771; and Dartmouth College, chartered in 1769, with classes beginning in 1770. Religious groups and their leaders generally controlled college administration and instruction. At first, the colleges had a Protestant Christian character, but with the advent of the Enlightenment the classical-religious curriculum expanded to include medicine, law, the sciences, and modern languages. The influence of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and others helped bring secularism and modernism into the American academy.

American usage of the term "university" dates from 1779, with the rechartering of the College of Philadelphia as the University of the State of Pennsylvania without loss of private status. State-controlled colleges and universities appeared in Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee by 1800. Other major developments prior to the Civil War included the growth of state and municipal colleges, coeducational collegiate facilities, professional education in dentistry and engineering, and military colleges. The Dartmouth College decision (1819) by the U.S. Supreme Court, a ruling barring state interference, became the Magna Charta of private and denominational colleges. Also significant were the increase of foreign study by Americans and the early provisions for graduate work. In the first half of the ninteenth century, colleges and universities sprang up all over the country, with the College (now University) of California chartered as a private institution in 1855. The federal government authorized land grants for colleges and universities in the Morrill Act (1862), enabling agricultural and engineering colleges that developed later into state universities to open. Students, too, actively shaped college and university life, often supplementing the limited official curriculum with literary societies, secret societies, and fraternities—organizations that exposed them to public speaking and current events.

After the Civil War, the number of colleges and universities continued to increase. In 1842, there were 101 colleges; in 1869, 563; and in 1900, 977. New institutions opened for women, African Americans, American Indians, and members of various faiths. Normal schools were upgraded to collegiate level. Many colleges added graduate and professional schools and became universities. The opening of the Johns Hopkins University (1876) brought German standards of research and scholarship to American higher education. Other changes included Harvard's institution of the undergraduate elective system; introduction of such new subjects as psychology, sociology, and anthropology; the extension of studies in the sciences and mathematics, history, economics, and modern languages; and the granting of funds under the second Morrill Act (1890) for instruction in agricultural and engineering colleges. Although this post-Civil War expansion of the curriculum incorporated most students' career needs, many students still focused their energies outside the classroom, especially on fraternities or sororities, athletics, and in "coffeehouse" organizations.

During the twentieth century, enrollment in colleges and universities climbed sharply upward, from 237,592 (1899–1900) to 8.1 million (1971–1972) to 14.5 million (1992–1993), although the number fell slightly in the mid-1990s to 14.3 million (1995–1996). The percentage of college students in the 18–21 age group rose from 4.01 (1899–1900) to over 50 percent by the 1970–1971 school year. By 1999, 25 percent of the American population over 25 years old had completed four or more years of college. (Roughly 8 percent held a master's degree or higher.) The number of women students and faculty members also increased perceptibly, as did the number of members of minority racial and ethnic groups and students with foreign citizenship.

Among the major developments of the twentieth century have been the growth of junior or community colleges, the proliferation of professional courses in all fields, the trend toward coeducation, the impact of the College Entrance Examination Board and the accrediting associations on admissions and standards, the federal govern-ment's contributions through such legislation as the Servicemen's Readjustment Act (GI Bill of Rights) of 1944 and the National Defense Education Act of 1958, the eruption of student dissent and violence in the 1960s, the unionization of faculties, and the introduction of open-admission plans and external degrees. In the 1960s the curriculum expanded with such innovations as black, women's, and ethnic studies; the financial crisis of the early 1970s made many colleges and universities, especially the private and denominational institutions, insecure; and in the 1980s and 1990s critics of affirmative action and "political correctness" brought the debate over curricular changes into the mainstream of debate.

During the 1960s protesting students not only forced university administrations to abolish in loco parentis rules but helped bring about the diversity that has become a hallmark of higher education. Student ranks expanded to include more members of minority groups and nontraditional students, such as men and women past the age of twenty-two, who often work at least part-time and may raise families while attending college. Diversification has brought a wider array of needs to the attention of campus administrators. Special offices, centers, and advocacy groups for women and minority students were created in attempt to meet their unique needs, but not without controversy. Complaints of favoritism and voluntary resegregation by minority groups occasionally accompanied such centers.

By the 1970s, 44 percent of the 2,600 colleges and universities were under governmental (mostly state) control and had 75 percent of the total enrollment. The remaining 56 percent of schools comprised institutions under denominational direction and those under the governance of self-perpetuating secular boards of trustees. A number of denominational colleges, though, have secularized the composition of their boards of trustees so as to qualify for much needed public funds. Financial pressures in the 1970s also forced private institutions to expand enrollments, raise tuition rates, and curtail some services. Many students relied on scholarships and grants from public and private sources to attend.

Colleges and universities also faced other new difficulties. One serious issue, especially for the junior faculty during the period of widespread protest in the 1960s and 1970s, was that of academic freedom and tenure. Pressures to limit or abolish tenure came from within and outside higher education. To some extent, criticism of faculty derived from the activism of some professors and from the prevalence of collective bargaining in some areas. The question of equal opportunity and affirmative action programs proved to be equally perplexing and controversial. Although accessibility barriers to higher education for racial and ethnic minorities and for women fell, some forms of discrimination continued. One source of dissatisfaction was the feeling that growing attention to the financial and other needs of the low-income groups was accompanied by difficulties for students from middle-income groups.

Mirroring the increasing diversity of student bodies, the professoriate likewise expanded somewhat to better reflect the makeup of the U.S. population. In part because of affirmative action initiatives by colleges and universities, the numbers of female, African American, Hispanic, Asian American, and Native American professors increased through the 1980s and 1990s, although not at the rate desired by many advocates. The numbers of women studying in such nontraditional fields as law and medicine have not been matched by proportionate numbers of tenured female professors in these fields. At the end of the twentieth century, more part-time faculty members, and many women and members of minority groups, fell into this category of low-paid instructors.

During the last quarter of the twentieth century, curricular offerings and types of higher-education institutions diversified as well. Partly a result of student protests during the 1960s, colleges and universities expanded offerings in such subjects as the history, music, and religions of non-Western cultures and literature by women and members of minority groups. The number of such academic departments as women's studies and African American studies increased, and some colleges and universities introduced racial or ethnic studies requirements to guarantee students the exposure to ideas outside the traditional white male European heritage. Critics dubbed this new wave of interests "political correctness" and argued that it inhibited dialogue, that the expanded curriculum was less rigorous than the traditional curriculum and therefore poorly served students and intellectual life. Best-selling books expanded the discussion beyond academe.

Beginning in the mid-1970s there was also a diversification of institutional structures. Community colleges expanded and many public institutions and some private colleges offered evening and weekend classes and courses via cable television and, in the late 1990s, via the Internet. More institutions took their courses to the students, offering courses in prisons, on military bases, and at community centers. At the same time, more colleges distinguished themselves from the mainstream. Historically black colleges and a few remaining women's colleges clarified their missions, advertising racial or single-sex atmospheres that fostered more success among minorities and women than racially mixed and coeducational schools. Similarly, new tribal colleges served Native American students.

At the end of the century, public universities continued their missions of teaching, research, and service to society, with research receiving much attention. As federal expenditures for research increased, the popular press criticized universities for spending research money unwisely and professors for spending more time on research than teaching. As a result, more stringent teaching requirements, downsizing, more efficient business practices to lower tuitions, and elimination of academic tenure were some of the solutions proposed by state legislatures and some university administrations. Along with diversification of colleges and universities came inflation of grades and educational credentials, making some bachelors' and graduate degrees of questionable value. At the same time employers required more and more extensive educational backgrounds. All of these factors guaranteed that colleges and universities would be important, and contested, territory for years to come, as the United States adjusted to post-Cold War educational and economic conditions.

Bibliography

Brickman, William W., and Stanley Lehrer, eds. A Century of Higher Education. New York: Society for the Advancement of Education, 1962.

Brubacher, John S., and Willis Rudy. Higher Education in Transition: A History of American Colleges and Universities, 1636–1968. New York: Harper and Row, 1968.

Chamberlain, Mariam K., ed. Women in Academe: Progress and Prospects. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1988.

Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz. Campus Life: Undergraduate Cultures from the End of the Eighteenth Century to the Present. New York: Knopf, 1987.

Jencks, Christopher, and David Riesman, The Academic Revolution. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1969.

Kerr, Clark. The Great Transformation in Higher Education, 1960–1980. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991.

Parsons, Talcott, and Gerald M. Platt. The American University. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973.

Riesman, David and Verne A. Stadtman, eds. Academic Transformation: Seventeen Institutions Under Pressure. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1973.

Rudolph, Frederick. The American College and University: A History. New York: Knopf, 1962.

Denominational Colleges

The establishment of institutions of higher learning in America was fostered by the central assertion of Puritanism that laity should possess the ability to read the Bible and understand theology. This principle made New England one of the most literate societies in the world during the seventeenth century; and it was upon this premise that Harvard College, the first denominational college in the English colonies, was established in 1636. A little more than thirty years later, Anglicans established the College of William and Mary in Virginia in order to educate the laity—male laity—to carry out their errand in the New World. Similar denominational institutions of faith and learning soon followed with the establishment of Yale, Princeton, Brown, Pennsylvania, and King's College (now Columbia) early in the eighteenth century. In 1789, largely through the efforts of Bishop John Carroll, Roman Catholics established their own institution of higher learning with the founding of Georgetown College. Other Catholic institutions such as St. Joseph's College and St. Louis College soon followed. By 1830, American Catholics had founded fourteen colleges. The curriculum in both Protestant and Catholic colleges mirrored the medieval educational model with students studying the Bible as well as ancient languages and the classics.

During the course of the next two hundred years, approximately nine hundred colleges were founded throughout the nation with heavy concentrations in the northeast and midwestern states. With the advent of the Civil War, however, few of these institutions of higher learning remained operable. Of the one hundred and eighty-two colleges that remained, some one hundred and sixty of them were denominationally related institutions. In part, this growth was attributable to the decentralized ecclesiastical structures of Protestant denominations that encouraged lay participation, a concern for educated leadership, and fund-raising. Not only were the percentages of denominational colleges growing during this era, but their curriculums and student populations were expanding as well.

The year 1828 saw the publication of "Original Papers in Relation to a Course of Liberal Education," in which the Yale report recommended that the curriculum of colleges should be extended beyond educating the nation's male citizenry in Christianity, the classics, and republicanism. At the same time, European schools of thought began to take hold in America. Scottish common sense realism, a philosophy widely espoused at colleges such as Princeton, held great sway in schools during this era, but so did the teachings of the Enlightenment and German idealism. Further efforts to educate the populace were taken in 1843 with the establishment of the interdenominational Society for the Promotion of Collegiate and Theological Education at the West. Ordained clergy often presided over these institutions, which came to reflect and articulate the ideals of the Protestant establishment.

Other religious institutions, such as Oberlin College, resisted some of the social conventions of the day. Founded in 1833, Oberlin soon gained the support of the popular revivalist Charles Grandison Finney and attracted students charged with being bound together in a "solemn covenant" and pledged to "the plainest living and highest thinking." Oberlin's admission policies were remarkably progressive for their time. The first class consisted of twenty-nine male and fifteen female students. In 1841, the college conferred bachelor's degrees upon three female students, making it the nation's first institution of higher education to do so. Such egalitarian measures were extended to people of color as well. By the mid-1830s Oberlin was advertising the admission of any youth "irrespective of color." Over time these efforts were a great success as nearly one-third of the college's graduates by the turn of the century were African American.

Several social currents contributed to the proliferation of denominational colleges in the late nineteenth century. Foremost were the country's industrial development and its geographical expansion. This growth, albeit modest at first, resulted in the expansion of the upper class, many of whom regarded higher education as a symbol of status. A result of these class assumptions was the increased numerical demands on the nation's institutions. But these market forces also helped to modernize the nation, consequently increasing its need for so-called "human capital formation." As the nation's need for professional workers increased, so did the demand for and opportunities of an educated middle class. Yet in the post–Civil War decade, only five hundred colleges were still solvent.

To stem the emerging demand for education, Congress passed the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 that helped establish more than seventy land-grant colleges. While seemingly inconsequential to the life of denominational colleges, the passage of this act helped to break the monopoly held by churches in higher education. Further loosening this stronghold was the growing internal bureaucracy found within denominations. With this latter development came two important changes. First, the creation of internal bureaucracies tended to distance educational institutions from their sponsoring denominations. This increased distance affected the shape of the curriculum and the way the mission of the school was carried out. Second, as these structures grew more complex internally, there tended to be less interdenominational cooperation. The balkanization of education agendas unwittingly served to severely undermine the cultural dominance several mainline Protestant denominations had attained.

At the same time, societal demands for an educated class were rapidly changing; this led to the development of an appreciable gap between both Catholic and Protestant curriculums and the needs of an industrializing nation. The long-standing "classical" curriculums of Latin, Greek, ethics, and rhetoric offered by these institutions did not meet the demands of the new economy. While the curriculums of a number of Protestant institutions gradually changed to meet these demands, Catholic institutions were slower to change. Their resistance was due in part to structural issues. Unlike Protestant institutions, Catholic colleges in America remained modeled on a European Jesuit system of instruction that combined secondary and collegiate education into a seven-year program. It would take several decades before the educational programs of Catholic colleges had adjusted to the prevailing patterns of American secondary education and economic change.

Protestant denominational colleges underwent a period of consolidation in the early twentieth century. Typically, the educational mission of schools fell under the auspices of appointed boards whose ideas of a religious-based education were often more broadly construed than those of the respective churches. Although some boards produced specific guidelines in determining the character or definition of church-related schools, among them Presbyterians, others simply sought to develop "Christian gentlemen" among their students. Protestant colleges were increasingly divesting themselves of their specific Christian heritage in order to serve the public at large. Further distancing church-related institutions from their historic roots was the emergence of philanthropic foundations whose terms often precluded funding colleges falling under sectarian controls. Faced with the mounting costs of running such institutions, many schools redefined their relationships with their denominations in order to qualify for funding.

Church-related institutions went through a difficult period between the 1960s and the 1980s. Skepticism among the nation's student population toward organized religion coupled with mounting costs and increased competition by tax-supported schools forced several colleges to either sever ties with their respective denominations or close altogether. In the midst of these changes, conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists from various denominations stepped in to fill what they perceived to be a void in American higher education. Establishing their own institutions of higher learning, such as Oral Roberts University, with decidedly faith-based curriculums, evangelicals were widely successful in attracting prospective students seemingly alienated by the concessions traditional religious institutions had made to American culture. While many publications and leading spokespersons predicted the not-too-distant end of denominational colleges, a great many remain viable centers of higher education.

Bibliography

Axtell, James. The School upon a Hill: Education and Society in Colonial New England. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1974.

Marsden, George M. The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Parsonage, Robert R., ed. Church Related Higher Education: Perceptions and Perspectives. Valley Forge, Pa.: Judson Press, 1978.

Power, Edward J. A History of Catholic Higher Education in the United States. Milwaukee, Wis.: Bruce Publishing, 1958.

Pattillo Jr., Manning M., and Donald M. MacKenzie. Church-Sponsored Higher Education in the United States. Washington, D.C.: American Council on Education, 1966.

Tewksbury, Donald G. The Founding of American Colleges and Universities before the Civil War. New York: Arno Press, 1969. Original edition published in 1932.

Women's Colleges

Once the only option available to women wanting to pursue higher education, women's colleges have become victims of their own success. With more American women than men enrolled in college during 2000–2001, many educators questioned whether all-female colleges have outlived their purpose.

Beginnings

Colleges for women grew from the female seminaries of the early nineteenth century. Based upon principles of "republican motherhood" and imbued with religiosity, Emma Willard's Troy Seminary (Troy, New York, 1821) and Catharine Beecher's Hartford Female Seminary (Hart-ford, Connecticut, 1824), among others, educated young women to be intelligent wives and mothers who would rear literate and moral sons capable of governing the new nation. Some of these institutions, such as Mount Holyoke (South Hadley, Massachusetts, 1837), adopted the vocational mission of training women to teach. With a curriculum for educating teachers and an endowment supporting lower-income students, Mount Holyoke rose to the forefront of the female academies.

Although labeled "seminaries" rather than "colleges" and open to girls as young as twelve, many early female schools offered curricula comparable to those of men's liberal arts colleges. Seminary students took Greek, Latin, French, botany, geology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, geography, American history, and physiology, in addition to "traditionally feminine" studies in fine arts, music, and dancing. Between 1830 and 1870, the 107 female semi-naries and academies covered most subjects addressed in the upper levels of men's colleges. In this way, the largely northeastern female academies of the era combined concern with "female qualities" like piety, purity, and domesticity with mastery of subjects considered off-limits for women. They thus expanded but left intact the boundaries of conventional womanhood.

The Development of Women's Higher Education

In the 1850s, as the common-school movement developed across the United States, a widespread need for teachers prompted the formation of "normal schools." Considered the more "nurturing" of the sexes, women were welcomed into schools as teachers. The Civil War with its casualties heightened demand for nurses. Women answered the call, increasing demands for their advanced training. Most of those (58.9 percent) who pursued higher education in America at this time did so at single-sex institutions.

By the 1860s, a growing push toward coeducation brought the issue of women's training to the forefront. In the wake of the Civil War, many previously all-male colleges wrestled with the question of coeducation. By 1889–1890, 39,500 women, or 70.1 percent of American female collegians, attended coeducational schools. Women's schools—many of them the former seminaries such as Mount Holyoke, now renamed as colleges—claimed the rest, a decline in the percentage of those choosing women-only, but still a massive increase in number: 16,800 students, up from 6,500 in 1869–1870.

Resistance to women's higher education remained, however. Dr. Edward Clarke's widely read Sex in Education (1873) argued that higher education was unnatural and harmful to women. Schools such as Stanford, University of Chicago, and University of Wisconsin, alarmed by growing female enrollments, introduced curbs, in the form of quotas and segregated classes. In the Northeast and South, some of the oldest and most prestigious colleges and universities steadfastly refused coeducation. Rather than opening their doors to women, some schools chose to form "coordinate" institutions. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard's stance prompted the founding of Radcliffe College (1894), while in New York City, Barnard College (1889) served as Columbia's "female annex."

In response to the continued exclusion of women from many institutions, several new and independent female colleges opened their doors: Elmira College (Elmira, New York) in 1855, Vassar (Poughkeepsie, New York) in 1865, Wellesley (Wellesley, Massachusetts) and Smith (Northampton, Massachusetts) in 1875, and Bryn Mawr (Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania) in 1885.

Coming Into Their Own

In the 1890s, following a national trend, many women's colleges shed their preparatory departments and recruited elite faculty, both male and female, to enhance their prestige. The institutions later known as the "Seven Sister Schools" came into their own academically, strengthening their curricula and instituting student governments as well as intercollegiate athletics and debate teams. Although Vassar College led the others in attaining national recognition, all took on serious roles in educating women not only for motherhood and womanhood but for careers in the public and private sectors as well. In the South, the still largely ornamental and wholly white "ladies seminaries" also became increasingly academic. Still, they continued to exhibit the conservative thinking of their environs by displaying greater reluctance to embrace women's expanding opportunities than did their northern predecessors.

Prior to the 1920s, most collegiate women were Protestant, white, and middle or upper middle class. Whereas coeducational state colleges attracted farmers' daughters and other members of the working classes, the women's colleges of the South and Northeast, with their high tuitions, residence fees, and limited financial aid, attracted the wealthier offspring of professional families. These schools offered an education that would not jeopardize their students' femininity. Students lived and studied under faculty supervision. Prohibitions against dancing and other "suspect activities" were common.

Many early female college graduates eschewed or delayed traditional patterns of marriage and childbearing, instead continuing their education or pursuing careers. Some enrolled in graduate programs ranging from science and medicine to English and music. Others taught or pursued paid or unpaid employment on academic and professional boards, in charities and other reform-oriented societies. As careers grew more common, many colleges altered their curricula. Rather than offering only liberal arts courses, many added instruction in education, home economics, and other social sciences.

In the 1910s and 1920s, greater numbers of Jewish, Catholic, and African American women, as well as recent immigrants, began to seek higher education. When they did, they often found the doors of select women's colleges closed. Tacit as well as explicitly articulated policies barred the admission, in particular, of qualified African American and Jewish students. In other instances, while enrollment may have been permitted, the nonwhite and non-Protestant students, often poorer, found tuition too steep and scholarship money too limited.

Some all-women's schools in urban areas enrolled greater numbers of religious, ethnic, and racial minorities. At Radcliffe in 1936–1937, for example, 24.8 percent of the women enrolled were Jewish, whereas at Mount Holyoke and Wellesley, that percentage stood at 6.5 and 9.0, respectively. Discrimination, however, prompted African Americans and Catholics to open their own women's schools. Bennett College (1926) in Greensboro, North Carolina, joined Spelman (1924), the former Atlanta seminary, as a leading educator of African American women. For Catholics, Trinity College of Washington, D.C. (1897), and the College of Notre Dame in Maryland (1896) increased their enrollments and liberalized their curricula.

Steps Forward—and Back

The World War II era changed American higher education. Shortages of male workers paved the way for the entry of women into new fields like engineering, while decreased enrollments forced many all-male schools to relax prohibitions against females. In 1943, Harvard opened its classrooms to women through the "Harvard-Radcliffe agreement." Other bastions of male scholarship also admitted women to their law, medical, and professional graduate programs.

At the war's end, however, the trends largely reversed, as troops came home and the GI Bill encouraged male enrollment. The percentage of women enrolled in higher education dropped to its lowest point in the twentieth century. Schools such as Vassar saw a 50 percent drop in the percentage of women pursuing chemistry and physics degrees between 1945 and 1955. The percentage of female doctorates in the sciences declined, while the percentages of those opting for marriage over careers increased.

At the women's colleges of the 1950s, many administrators began to reinvoke the language of republican motherhood in discussions of female higher education. At Radcliffe, President W. K. Jordan welcomed incoming classes by assuring them that their "education would prepare them to be splendid wives and mothers." Mills College (1852) in California inserted cooking, home decorating, and flower arranging into its curriculum. Across the women's colleges of the country, and the coeducational schools as well, engagement, rather than a professional degree or satisfying career, marked the ultimate in female collegiate fulfillment.

Women's Colleges in the New Century: Challenges and Possibilities

The women's movement of the 1960s and 1970s radically altered American higher education. As most all-male colleges opened to women, many of the all-women's colleges decided to open to men, citing, among other reasons, declining interest in single-sex education and decreased need, due to societal changes, for the separate education of the sexes. Vassar College became coeducational, while Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, and Mills affiliated with coeducational colleges, sometimes against students' wishes. As the twentieth century drew to a close, Radcliffe merged entirely with Harvard. Whereas one hundred years before, women's colleges had educated almost 29 percent of the female college population, at the end of the 1990s, only 1.3 percent of female collegians earned their degrees from a single-sex school.

Although increasingly challenged to justify their place and purpose, women's colleges still claimed support. A study of women executives in Fortune 500 companies found a disproportionately high number of female college attendees. Likewise, examinations of Who's Who and other female achievement catalogs have found higher than proportional numbers of women's college graduates among their ranks.

Bibliography

Butcher, Patricia Smith. Education for Equality: Women's Rights Periodicals and Women's Higher Education, 1849–1920. New York: Greenwood Press, 1989.

Chamberlain, Miriam K., ed. Women in Academe: Progress and Prospects. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1988.

Eschbach, Elizabeth Seymour. The Higher Education of Women in England and America, 1865–1920. New York and London: Garland, 1993.

Faragher, John Mack, and Florence Howe, eds. Women and Higher Education in American History: Essays from the Mount Holyoke College Sesquicentennial Symposium. New York: Norton, 1988.

Frankfort, Roberta. Collegiate Women: Domesticity and Career in Turn-of-the-Century America. New York: New York University Press, 1977.

Gordon, Lynn D. Gender and Higher Education in the Progressive Era. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1990.

Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz. Alma Mater: Design and Experience in the Women's Colleges from Their Nineteenth-Century Beginnings to the 1930s. New York: Knopf, 1984.

Komarovsky, Mirra. Women in College: Shaping New Feminine Identities. New York: Basic Books, 1985.

Minnich, Elizabeth, Jean O'Barr, and Rachel Rosenfeld. Reconstructing the Academy: Women's Education and Women's Studies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.

Newcomer, Mabel. A Century of Higher Education for American Women. New York: Harper, 1959.

Solomon, Barbara Miller. In the Company of Educated Women: A History of Women and Higher Education in America. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985.

Woody, Thomas. A History of Women's Education in the United States. 2 vols. 1929. Reprint, New York: Octagon Books, 1980.

—Diana B. Turk

Higher education has developed in numerous ways since the end of World War II. Throughout the world, issues such as autonomy and accountability, the impact of technology, the growing role of markets and the privatization of higher education, the role of research and teaching, various efforts toward curriculum reform, and the massive expansion that has characterized higher education systems in most countries have all played important roles in the development of higher education. Universities are international institutions, with common historical roots, and at the same time are embedded in national cultures and circumstances. It is worthwhile to examine the contemporary challenges to higher education in comparative perspective, as most issues affect academe everywhere.

Expansion: Hallmark of the Postwar Era

Postsecondary education has expanded since World War II in virtually every country in the world. The growth of postsecondary education has, in proportional terms, been more dramatic than that of primary and secondary education. Writing in 1975, Martin Trow spoke of the transition from elite to mass and then to universal higher education in the industrialized nations. While the United States enrolled some 30 percent of the relevant age cohort (18 - 21 year olds) in higher education in the immediate postwar period, European nations generally maintained an elite higher education system, with fewer than 5 percent of the population attending postsecondary institutions. By the 1960s many European nations educated 15 percent or more of this age group - Sweden for example, enrolled 24 percent in 1970, with France at 17 percent. At the same time, the United States increased its proportion to around 50 percent, approaching universal access. By the mid-1990s many European countries, including France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, enrolled around 50 percent of the relevant age group, and the proportion in the United States increased to three-quarters. While Europe and North America are now relatively stable, middle-income countries and countries in the developing world have continued to expand at a rapid rate.

In the Third World, expansion has been similarly dramatic. Building on tiny and extraordinarily elitist universities, higher education expanded rapidly in the immediate post-independence period. In India, enrollments grew from approximately 100,000 at the time of independence in 1947 to over 6.5 million in the 1990s - although India enrolls just 7 percent of the relevant age group. China enrolls a similar number, though this represents only 5 percent of its young people. China, especially, is engaged in a dramatic expansion program. Expansion in Africa has also been rapid, with the postsecondary student population growing from 21,000 in 1960 to 437,000 in 1983, but with growth stagnating in the 1990s as a result of the economic and political difficulties experienced by many sub-Saharan African countries. Recent economic difficulties in much of sub-Saharan Africa have meant that per-student expenditure has dropped, contributing to a marked deterioration in academic standards. Enrollment growth has also slowed.

Expansion is also a hallmark elsewhere in the non-Western countries. The situation is complex. In some countries, including the larger Latin American nations, the Philippines, and some others, enrollment rates have reached 30 percent or more. In most of the low-income nations, however, enrollments lag far behind. However, growth continues to be rapid in much of the Third World, with accompanying strains on budgets and facilities - and deterioration in standards. Expansion in the Third World has, in general, exceeded that in the industrialized nations, at least in proportional terms. It should be noted that there are significant variations among Third World nations - some countries maintain small and relatively elitist university systems, while others have expanded more rapidly. Among the highest rates of expansion, and now of participation, are in those newly industrialized countries such as South Korea and Taiwan.

There are many reasons for the expansion of higher education. A central cause has been the increasing complexity of modern societies and economies, which have demanded a more highly trained workforce. Almost without exception, postsecondary institutions have been called on to provide the required training. Indeed, training in many fields that had once been imparted on the job has become formalized in institutions of higher education. Whole new fields, such as computer science, have come into existence, and many of these rely on universities as a key source of research and training. Nations now developing scientific and industrial capacity, such as Korea and Taiwan, have depended on academic institutions to provide high-level training and research expertise to a greater extent than was the case during the first industrial revolution in Europe.

Not only do academic institutions provide training, they also test and provide certification for many roles and occupations in contemporary society. These roles have been central to universities from their origins in the medieval period, but have been vastly expanded in recent years. A university degree is a prerequisite for an increasing number of occupations in most societies. Indeed, it is fair to say that academic certification is necessary for most positions of power, authority, and prestige in modern societies. This places immense power in the hands of universities. Tests to gain admission to higher education are rites of passage in many societies and are important determinants of future success. Competition within academe varies from country to country, but in most cases an emphasis is also placed on high academic performance and tests in the universities. There are often further examinations to permit entry into specific professions.

The role of the university as an examining body has grown for a number of reasons. As expansion has taken place, it has been necessary to provide ever more competitive sorting mechanisms to control access to high-prestige occupations. The universities are also seen as meritocratic institutions that can be trusted to provide fair and impartial tests to measure accomplishment honestly and, therefore, determine access. When such mechanisms break down - as they did in China during the Cultural Revolution - or where they are perceived to be subject to corrupt influences - as in India - the universities are significantly weakened. The older, more informal, and often more ascriptive means of controlling access to prestigious occupations are no longer able to provide the controls needed, nor are they perceived as fair. Entirely new fields have developed where no sorting mechanisms existed, and academic institutions have frequently been called upon to provide not only training but also examination and certification.

Expansion has also occurred because the growing segments of the population of modern societies demand it. The middle classes, seeing that academic qualifications are necessary for success, demand access to higher education. Governments generally respond by increasing enrollment. When governments do not move quickly enough, private initiatives frequently establish academic institutions in order to meet the demand. In countries like India, the Philippines, and Bangladesh, a majority of the students are educated in private colleges and universities. At present, there are powerful worldwide trends toward: (1) imposing user fees in the form of higher tuition charges, (2) increasingly stressing private higher education, and (3) defining education as a "private good" in economic terms. These changes are intended to reduce the cost of postsecondary education for governments, while maintaining access - although the long-term implications for the quality of, access to, and control over higher education remain unclear.

In most countries, higher education is heavily subsidized by the government, and most, if not all, academic institutions are in the public sector. While there is a growing trend toward private initiative and management sharing responsibility for education with public institutions, governments will likely continue to be central to funding postsecondary education, although the private sector is currently the major source of growth worldwide. The dramatic expansion of academic institutions in the postwar period has proved very expensive for governments and has led to a diversification of funding sources. Nonetheless, the demand for access has been an extraordinarily powerful one.

Change and Reform: Trends Since the 1960s

The demands placed on institutions of higher education to accommodate larger numbers of students and to serve expanding functions has resulted in reforms in higher education in many countries. Much debate has taken place concerning higher education reform in the 1960s - and a significant amount of change did take place. It is possible to identify several important factors that contributed both to the debate and to the changes that took place. Without question, the unprecedented student unrest of the period contributed to a sense of disarray in higher education. The unrest was in part precipitated by deteriorating academic conditions that were the result of the rapid expansion. In a few instances, students demanded far-reaching reforms, although they did not always propose specific changes. Students frequently demanded an end to the rigidly hierarchical organization of the traditional European university, and major reforms were made in this respect. The chair system, which gave total power to small groups of senior professors, was modified or eliminated, and the responsibility for academic decision making was expanded in some countries to include students. At the same time, the walls of the traditional academic disciplines were broken down by various plans for interdisciplinary teaching and research.

In the 1990s the major trend in restructuring European universities has been on improving the administrative efficiency and accountability of the universities, and many of the reforms of the 1960s were modified or even eliminated. Students, for example, have less power now. In the Netherlands, a national restructuring has increased the power of administrators, reformed the governance system by reducing the power of the senior professors, greatly increased accountability, and shifted more of the financial responsibilities to the academic institutions themselves. Students have little authority in the new arrangements. While the Dutch have implemented the most dramatic reforms, similar trends can be seen in Germany, Sweden, and other countries.

In many industrialized nations structural change has been modest. In the United States, for example, despite considerable debate during the 1960s, there was very limited change in the structure or governance of higher education. Japan, which saw unrest that disrupted higher education and spawned a large number of reports on university reform, experienced virtually no basic change in its higher education system, although several new model interdisciplinary institutions were established - such as the science-oriented Tsukuba University near Tokyo. Britain, less affected by student protest and with an established plan for expansion in operation, also experienced few reforms during the 1960s, and some of the changes implemented in the 1960s have since been criticized or abandoned. In Germany, reforms in governance that gave students and junior staff a dominant position in some university functions were ruled unconstitutional by the German courts.

Many of the structural reforms of the 1960s were abandoned after a decade of experimentation, or they were replaced by administrative arrangements that emphasized accountability and efficiency. Outside authorities - including government, but in some cases business, industry, or labor organizations - have come to play a more important role in academic governance. The curricular innovations of the 1960s, as well as later decades, have proved more durable. Interdisciplinary programs and initiatives and the introduction of new fields such as gender studies have characterized changes in many countries.

Vocationalization has been an important trend in higher education change. Throughout the world there is a conviction that the university curriculum must provide relevant training for a variety of increasingly complex jobs. The traditional notion that higher education should consist of liberal, nonvocational studies for elites, or should provide a broad but unfocused curriculum, has been widely criticized for lacking "relevance." Students, worried about obtaining remunerative employment, have pressed the universities to be more focused. Employers have also demanded that the curriculum become more directly relevant to their needs. Enrollments in the social sciences and humanities, at least in the industrialized nations, have declined because these fields are not considered vocationally relevant.

Curricular vocationalism is linked to another key worldwide trend in higher education: the increasingly close relationship between universities and industry. Industrial firms have sought to ensure that the skills they need are incorporated into the curriculum. This trend also has implications for academic research, since many university-industry relationships are focused largely on research. Industries have established formal linkages and research partnerships with universities in order to obtain help with research in which they are interested. In some countries, such as Sweden, representatives of industry have been added to the governing councils of higher education institutions.

University-industry relations have become crucial for higher education in many countries. Technical arrangements with regard to patents, confidentiality of research findings, and other fiscal matters have become important. Critics have pointed out that the nature of research in higher education may be altered by these new relationships, as industrial firms are not generally interested in basic research. University-based research, which has traditionally been oriented toward basic research, may be increasingly skewed to applied and profit-making topics. There has also been some discussion of the orientation of research, particularly in fields like biotechnology, where broader public policy matters may conflict with the needs of corporations. Specific funding arrangements have also been questioned. Pressure to serve the immediate needs of society, and particularly the training and research requirements of industry, is currently a key concern for universities, one that has implications for the organization of the curriculum, the nature and scope of research, and the traditional relationship between the university and society.

Universities have traditionally claimed significant autonomy for themselves. The traditional idea of academic governance stresses autonomy, and universities have tried to insulate themselves from direct control by external agencies. However, as universities have expanded and become more expensive, there has been immense pressure by those providing funds for higher education (mainly governments) to expect accountability from universities. The conflict between autonomy and accountability has been one of the flashpoints of controversy in recent years. Without exception, autonomy has been limited, and new administrative structures have been put into place in such countries as Britain and the Netherlands to ensure greater accountability. The issue takes on different implications in different parts of the world. In the Third World, for example, traditions of autonomy have not been strong, and demands for accountability, which include both political and economic elements, are especially troublesome. In the industrialized nations accountability pressures are more fiscal in nature.

The Twenty-First Century

The university in modern society is a durable institution. It has maintained key elements of the historical models from which it evolved over many centuries, while at the same time it has successfully evolved to serve the needs of societies during a period of tremendous social change. There has been a convergence of both ideas and institutional patterns and practices in higher education throughout the world. This has been due in part to the implantation of European-style universities in the developing areas during and after the colonial era, and in part to the fact universities have been crucial in the development and internationalization of science and scholarship.

Despite remarkable institutional stability over time, universities have changed and have been subjected to immense pressures in the post - World War II period. Many of the changes chronicled here are the result of great external pressure and were instituted despite opposition from within the institutions. Some have argued that the university has lost its soul. Others have claimed that the university is irresponsible because it uses public funds and does not always conform to the direct needs of industry and government. Pressure from governmental authorities, militant students, or external constituencies have all placed great strains on academic institutions.

The period since World War II has been one of unprecedented growth - the dominant trend worldwide has been toward mass higher education. The university is at the center of the postindustrial, knowledge-based society. The problems faced by higher education are, in part, related to growth and expansion. The following issues are among those that will be of concern in the coming decade and beyond.

Access and adaption. Although in a few countries access to postsecondary education has been provided to virtually all segments of the population, in most countries a continuing unmet demand exists for higher education. Progress toward broadening the social class base of higher education has slowed (and in many industrialized countries stopped in the 1970s). With the arrival of democratic governments in eastern Europe, the reemergence of demand in western Europe, and continuing pressure for expansion in the Third World, demand for access continues, fueling an expansion of enrollments in many countries. Often, limited funds and a desire for efficient allocation of scarce postsecondary resources come into direct conflict with demands for access. In addition, demands for access by previously disenfranchised groups will continue to place great pressure on higher education. In many countries, racial, ethnic, or religious minorities play a role in shaping higher education policy.

Administration, accountability, and governance. As academic institutions become larger and more complex, there is increasing pressure for a greater degree of professional administration. At the same time, the traditional forms of academic governance are increasingly criticized - not only because they are unwieldy, but also because in large and bureaucratic institutions they are inefficient. The administration of higher education will increasingly become a profession, much as it is in the United States. Academic institutions have become complex bureaucratic structures, requiring managerial expertise to administer. Demands for accountability are growing and will cause academic institutions considerable difficulty. As academic budgets expand, there are inevitable demands to monitor and control expenditures. The appropriate level of governmental supervision of higher education remains contested terrain. The challenge will be to ensure that the traditional - and valuable - patterns of faculty control over governance and the basic academic decisions in universities are maintained in a complex and bureaucratic environment.

Research and knowledge dissemination. Research is a central part of the mission of many universities, and of the academic system in general. Contemporary knowledge-based societies depend on research, both basic and applied, for their success, and universities have traditionally been key sources of research. Decisions concerning the control and funding of research, the relationship of research to the broader curriculum and teaching, the uses made of university-based research, and other related issues will all be in contention in future years. Current debates concerning the appropriate role of industry in sponsoring, and perhaps controlling, research, and about the control of knowledge products, will help to shape the future of academic research.

The system of knowledge dissemination, including journals, books, and computer-based data systems, is rapidly changing, and many questions remain unanswered. Who should control the new data networks? How will traditional means of communication, such as journals, survive in this new climate? How will the scientific system avoid being overwhelmed by the proliferation of data? Who will pay for the costs of knowledge dissemination? In addition, the needs of peripheral scientific systems, including both the Third World and smaller academic systems in the industrialized world, have been largely ignored, but are nonetheless important.

While the technological means for rapid knowledge dissemination are available, issues of control and ownership, the appropriate use of databases, problems of maintaining quality standards in databases, and other related questions are very important. It is possible that the new technologies will lead to increased centralization rather than to wider access. It is also possible that libraries and other users of knowledge will be overwhelmed, both by the cost of obtaining new material and by the flow of knowledge. At present, academic institutions in the United States and other English-speaking nations, along with publishers and the owners of the communications networks, stand to gain. The major Western knowledge producers currently constitute a kind of cartel of information, dominating not only the creation of knowledge but also most of the major channels of distribution. Simply increasing the amount of research and creating new databases will not ensure a more equal and accessible knowledge system.

The academic profession. In most countries, the professoriate has found itself under great pressure at the turn of the twenty-first century. Demands for accountability, increased bureaucratization of institutions, fiscal constraints in many countries, and an increasingly diverse student body have all challenged the professoriate. In most industrialized nations, a combination of fiscal problems and demographic factors have led to a stagnating profession. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, demographic factors and a modest upturn in enrollments are beginning to turn surpluses into shortages. In the newly industrializing countries (NICs), the professoriate has significantly improved its status, remuneration, and working conditions. In the poorer nations, however, the situation has, if anything, become more difficult with decreasing resources and everincreasing enrollments. Overall, the professoriate will face severe problems as academic institutions change during the twenty-first century. Maintaining autonomy, academic freedom, and a commitment to the traditional goals of the university will be difficult.

In the West, it will be hard to lure the "best and brightest" into academe in a period when faculty positions are again relatively plentiful - in many fields, academic salaries have not kept pace with the private sector, and the traditional academic lifestyle has deteriorated. The pressure on the professoriate not only to teach and do research, but also to attract external grants, do consulting, and the like, is great. In Britain and Australia, for example, universities have become "cost centers," and accountability has been pushed to its logical extreme. British academics entering the profession after 1989 will no longer have tenure, but will, in the future, be periodically evaluated. In the NICs, the challenge will be to create a fully autonomous academic profession in a context in which traditions of research and academic freedom are only now developing. The difficulties faced by the poorer Third World countries are perhaps the greatest, as they struggle to maintain a viable academic culture under deteriorating conditions.

Private resources and public responsibility. In almost every country there has been a growing emphasis on increasing the role of the private sector in higher education. One of the most direct manifestations of this trend is the role of the private sector in funding and directing university research. In many countries private academic institutions have expanded, or new ones have been established. In addition, students are paying an increasing share of the cost of their education as a result of tuition and fee increases, and through loan programs.

Governments try to limit their expenditures on postsecondary education, while at the same time recognizing that the functions of universities are important. Privatization has been the primary means of achieving this broad policy goal. Inevitably, decisions concerning academic developments will move increasingly to the private sector, with the possibility that broader public goals may be ignored. Whether private interests will support the traditional functions of universities, including academic freedom, basic research, and a pattern of governance that leaves the professoriate in control, is unclear. Some of the most interesting developments in private higher education can be found in such countries as Vietnam, China, and Hungary, where private institutions have recently been established. The growth of a new for-profit private sector in the United States and elsewhere creates an entirely new sector of higher education, and private initiatives in higher education will bring a change in values and orientations. It is not clear, however, that these values will be in the long-term best interests of the university.

Diversification and stratification. While diversification - the establishing of new postsecondary institutions to meet diverse needs - is by no means an entirely unprecedented phenomenon, it is a trend that has been of primary importance, and it will continue to reshape the academic system. In recent years, the establishment of research institutions, community colleges, polytechnics, and other academic institutions designed to meet specialized needs and serve specific populations has been a primary characteristic of growth. At the same time, the academic system has become more stratified, and individuals within one sector of the system are finding it difficult to move to a different sector. There is often a high correlation between social class (and other variables) and selection to a particular sector of the system.

To some extent, the reluctance of traditional universities to change is responsible for some of the diversification. Perhaps more important, however, has been the belief that it is efficient and less expensive to establish new limited-function institutions.

One element of diversification is the inclusion of larger numbers of women and other previously disenfranchised segments of the population. Women now constitute 40 percent of the postsecondary student population worldwide - and they are now a majority in U.S. institutions. In many countries, students from lower socioeconomic groups, and racial and ethnic minorities, are entering postsecondary institutions in significant numbers. This diversification will also present challenges in the coming decades.

Economic disparities. There are substantial inequalities among the world's universities - and these inequalities will likely grow. The major universities in the industrialized nations generally have the resources to play a leading role in scientific research - though it will be increasingly expensive to keep up with the expansion of knowledge. Universities in much of the Third World, however, simply cannot cope with the continuing pressure for increased enrollments, particularly when combined with budgetary constraints and, in some cases, fiscal disasters. For example, universities in much of sub-Saharan Africa have experienced dramatic budget cuts and find it difficult to function, not to mention to improve quality and compete in the international knowledge system. In the middle are academic institutions in the Asian NICs, where significant academic progress has taken place. Thus, the economic prospects for postsecondary education worldwide are mixed.

Conclusion

Universities share a common culture and reality. In many basic ways there is an international convergence of institutional models and norms. At the same time, there are significant national differences that will continue to affect the development of academic systems and institutions. It is unlikely that the basic structures of academic institutions will change dramatically; the traditional university will survive, although it will be changed by the forces discussed here. Open universities and other distance education institutions have emerged, and may provide new institutional arrangements. Efforts to save money may yield further organizational changes as well. Unanticipated change is also possible.

The circumstances facing universities in the first part of twenty-first century are not, in general, favorable. The realities of higher education as a "mature industry," with stable, rather than growing, resources in the industrialized countries, will affect not only the funds available for postsecondary education, but also practices within academic institutions. Accountability, the impact of technologies, and the other forces discussed here will all affect colleges and universities. Patterns will, of course, vary worldwide. Some academic systems, especially those in the newly industrializing countries, will continue to grow. In parts of the world affected by significant political and economic change, the coming decades will be ones of reconstruction. The coming period, therefore, holds many challenges for higher education.

Bibliography

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— PHILIP G. ALTBACH

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