A masterful history of the postwar transformation of American higher
education
American higher education is nearly four centuries old. But 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 the most complete
and 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 challenges confronting American colleges today.
Shedding critical light on the tensions and triumphs of an era of rapid
change, Geiger shows how American universities emerged after the war as
the world's most successful system for the advancement of knowledge, how
the pioneering of mass higher education led to the goal of higher
education for all, and how the "selectivity sweepstakes" for admission
to the most elite schools has resulted in increased stratification
today. He identifies 1980 as a turning point when the link between
research and economic development stimulated a revival in academic
research--and the ascendancy of the modern research university--that
continues to the present.
Sweeping in scope and richly insightful, this groundbreaking book
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. It 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.
