When was higher education established

These tendencies are not wholly the fault of accreditation requirements and other regulations. They also result from rankings.

The common scale forces competition along its metrics. A few bravura experiments in American higher education have sustained themselves. They include sectarian schools that have resisted secular trends. They include schools with labor programs or that serve specific populations. There remains hope. More than anything else America is offering the world, higher education and democracy through rule of law are the most attractive.

That is no accident, because the one enables the other: colleges and universities are the engine of the American Dream.

News U. Politics Joe Biden Congress Extremism. Special Projects Highline. HuffPost Personal Video Horoscopes. Follow Us. Terms Privacy Policy. Part of HuffPost Education. All rights reserved. Suggest a correction. The Act required states with racially segregated public higher education systems to provide a land-grant institution for black students whenever a land-grant institution was established and restricted for white students. After the passage of the Act, public land-grant institutions specifically for blacks were established in each of the southern and border states.

As a result, some new public black institutions were founded, and a number of formerly private black schools came under public control; eventually 16 black institutions were designated as land-grant colleges. These institutions offered courses in agricultural, mechanical, and industrial subjects, but few offered college-level courses and degrees.

The U. Supreme Court's decision in Plessy v. Ferguson established a "separate but equal" doctrine in public education. In validating racially dual public elementary and secondary school systems, Plessy also encouraged black colleges to focus on teacher training to provide a pool of instructors for segregated schools.

At the same time, the expansion of black secondary schools reduced the need for black colleges to provide college preparatory instruction. By , more-than 32, students were enrolled in such well known private black institutions as Fisk University, Hampton Institute, Howard University, Meharry Medical College, Morehouse College, Spelman College, and Tuskegee Institute, as well as a host of smaller black colleges located in southern and border states.

In the same year, over 43, students were enrolled in public black colleges. HBCUs enrolled 3, students in graduate programs. These private and public institutions mutually served the important mission of providing education for teachers, ministers, lawyers, and doctors for the black population in a racially segregated society.

The addition of graduate programs, mostly at public HBCUs, reflected three Supreme Court decisions in which the "separate but equal" principle of Plessy was applied to graduate and professional education. The decisions stipulated: 1 a state must offer schooling for blacks as soon as it provided it for whites Sinuel v.

Board of Regents of University of Oklahoma, ; 2 black students must receive the same treatment as white students MacLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, ; and 3 a state must provide facilities of comparable quality for black and white students Sweatt v. Painter, Black students increasingly were admitted to traditionally white graduate and professional schools if their program of study was unavailable at HBCUs.

In effect, desegregation in higher education began at the post-baccalaureate level. In , the U. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education rejected the "separate but equal" doctrine and held that racially segregated public schools deprive black children of equal protection guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. The Plessy decision, which had governed public education policy for more than a half-century, was overturned.

Despite the landmark Supreme Court decision in Brown , most HBCUs remained segregated with poorer facilities and budgets compared with traditionally white institutions. Lack of adequate libraries and scientific and research equipment and capabilities placed a serious handicap on many. Many of the public HBCUs closed or merged with traditionally white institutions. However, most black college students continued to attend HBCUs years after the decision was rendered.

Soon after the Brown decision, Congress passed Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of to provide a mechanism for ensuring equal opportunity in federally assisted programs and activities. In enacting Title VI, Congress also reflected its concern with the slow progress in desegregating educational institutions following the Supreme Court's Brown decision. Title VI protects individuals from discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in programs or activities receiving federal financial assistance.

OCR placed its primary compliance emphasis in the s and early s on eliminating unconstitutional elementary and secondary school segregation in the southern and border states. Nineteen states were operating racially segregated higher education systems at the time Title VI was enacted. In , after intensive investigative work, OCR notified a number of the states that they were in violation of Title VI for having failed to dismantle their previously operated racial systems of higher education.

OCR sought, without success, statewide higher education desegregation plans. In , private plaintiffs filed suit against HEW for failing to initiate enforcement action against the systems under investigation by OCR. Their suit is known as the Adams case. In , as part of the Adams case, a court ordered the federal government to establish new, uniform criteria for statewide desegregation. In response, OCR published criteria specifying the ingredients of acceptable plans to desegregate State systems of public higher education Criteria.

Accordingly, the Criteria called for the enhancement of HBCUs through improvements in physical plants and equipment, number and quality of faculties, and libraries and other financial support. The Criteria also called for expanding nonminority enrollment at HBCUs by offering on their campuses academic programs that are in high demand or unavailable at the state systems' other campuses.

Efforts also were to be made to provide HBCUs with resources that would ultimately ensure they were at least comparable to those at traditionally white institutions having similar missions. Under the plans accepted by OCR, HBCUs have aimed for desegregated student enrollments and better programs and facilities while retaining or enhancing their historic stature.

OCR has monitored the plans to make sure they have been implemented. Such organizations as the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Rockefeller General Education Board adjudicated ratings among American universities. The foundation directors used a combination of coercion and incentives to prompt universities, including professional schools, to adhere to reasonable criteria of admissions, instruction, and certification. On balance, the foundations probably acknowledged and promoted those universities that were already reasonably strong and sound, and raised the floor for others.

Much to the chagrin of "serious scholars," students shaped the undergraduate world according to their own preferences. It was in the elaborate extracurricular experiences of intercollegiate sports, campus newspapers, collegiate drama, literary societies, alumni groups, and fraternities that students reveled. Student and public enthusiasm for these activities grew as the popular media glamorized the social activities rather than scholarly pursuits.

Although the new structure and ethos of the "university" gained attention for its innovation, equally important was the support for and interest in smaller liberal arts colleges. This rising tide for colleges included an extended boom for the founding of women's colleges.

Mount Holyoke Seminary in western Massachusetts transformed itself into a bachelor's degree-granting institution. Women also gained access via new coeducational institutions such as the University of Chicago, Stanford University, and many state colleges and universities in the Midwest and the West.

Higher education between the world wars. Between and the American campus displayed some flexibility to accommodate special programs for the domestic effort during World War I. It included special training programs for military personnel and sporadic but important instances of faculty research leading to direct inventions and innovations in warfare. Projects such as future Harvard president James B.

Conant's efforts to develop mustard gas foreshadowed even greater cooperation between the universities and federal government during World War II. College enrollments and public enthusiasm surged after World War I.

One indicator of this popularity was the proliferation of huge football stadiums—most of which were named "Memorial Field. Although popular since the s, intercollegiate athletics soared in commercial appeal during the s. The absence of any substantive national voluntary self-regulation led the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching to publish a highly visible expose of college sports' excesses in Some university officials denied the report's findings, but the Carnegie Study was timely and accurate.

The abuses in college sports underscored what Abraham Flexner of the Carnegie Foundation identified as the root source of problems in American higher education: a lack of consensus on clarity of mission and purpose. Unfortunately for Flexner and his colleagues, too many colleges and their constituencies were well served by the amorphous, unregulated nature of American higher education. What was intended as a marketplace of ideas became simply a marketplace, in which students were consumers and sports was the best-seller.

The onset of the Great Depression illustrated an interesting phenomenon: college enrollments increased during times of national financial hardship. While institutions reduced budgets, many worked to sustain American colleges in lean years. Some universities also demonstrated resourcefulness in seeking out business and industrial projects for their faculty in such fields as engineering and physics.

These initiatives by such schools as Stanford, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and California Institute of Technology laid the groundwork for external projects sponsored by both the private sector and the federal government that would come to fruition in the s.

Higher education's golden age: to Between and American colleges and universities participated directly and effectively in a complex national war effort. This track record in times of duress brought long-term rewards and readjustments after the war. In , the President's Commission on Higher Education in a Democracy concluded that federal funding of research should continue even in peacetime.

In response to the "problem" of returning military personnel to the domestic economy and as a measure of gratitude, Congress passed the Servicemen's Readjustment Act , popularly known as the "G. This legislation also gave energy to civil rights cases linked with educational access.

In addition to federal funding, growing states with enthusiastic governors and legislatures sought ways to work with their state's educational leaders to accommodate an impending enrollment boom.

The rising birth rate and increased migration into selected states, along with a deliberate extension of college admissions, caused this dramatic growth.

California led the way in statewide coordination with its Master Plan of This program aimed at accommodating mass access to affordable higher education by channeling students into tiered institutions. Among the most conspicuous transformations was the emergence of a network of public junior colleges.

Founded in the early s, junior colleges experienced expansion in California during the s. After World War II these institutions carried out two critical functions in mass postsecondary education. First, they developed a "transfer function" in which students could enter colleges or universities after two years of course work at the junior college.

They also offered advanced, terminal degree instruction and certification in a range of professional and occupational fields. By the s, the addition of a third function—readily accessible, low-priced continuing education for adults—led to a change in the name from junior college to community college. The federal government participated in the expansion of sponsored research and development education during the s and s. Federal agencies that became most involved were those requiring applied technical research, specifically defense and agriculture.

The behavioral sciences gradually adopted this model for large-scale psychological testing, and then various health care programs also sought funding. Agencies such as the National Institute of Health possessed a limited scope and a miniscule budget in the late s, but acquired an increasing presence over the next four decades. In , Clark Kerr's work The Uses of the University summarized this culmination of government patronage in research and development.

According to Kerr, about fifty to one hundred institutions had positioned themselves to be "Federal Grant Universities": powerful incubators of advanced scholarship in the sciences possessing the ability to inspire confidence and funding in their research grant applications.

Both public and private universities benefited from governmental concerns about "cold war" defense and competition with the Soviet Union. Fears resulting from an extended definition of "national defense" led to funding for advanced studies in foreign languages, anthropology, and political science as well as the "hard" sciences of physics and chemistry.

The transfer of these national programs to higher education institutions increased both the founding of new campuses and the construction of new buildings on older campuses. According to one study in , about 75 percent of American campus buildings were constructed between and , suggesting that the symbol for higher education during the cold war ought to be the building crane.

Enrollment also surged during the cold war era. Just prior to World War II the state universities with the largest enrollments—namely, the Ohio State University and the University of California at Berkeley—surged far ahead of other institutions with enrollments of around 19, Many major state universities prior to World War II had enrollments between 3, and 6, By , however, the Ohio State University's main campus at Columbus enrolled more than 50,—comparable to the University of Minnesota.

The University of California had expanded its Berkeley campus enrollment to 26, Some states responded to increasing enrollments with complex, multicampus systems.

The University of California, for example, had ten campuses, with a total enrollment exceeding , At the same time, the network of California state colleges formed its own system, eventually enrolling about two hundred thousand students as well.

In addition, California's community colleges further expanded the accessibility to higher education by forming more than one hundred campuses. While individual states pursued some variation of this theme, public community college systems enjoyed the greatest gains in student enrollments and campus expansion.

Especially in such populous states as California, Texas, and Florida, the community college systems served a larger and expanding portion of the state's population. Although relative enrollment in private independent colleges decreased from approximately 50 percent of college students in to about 30 percent, this change did not preclude substantial numerical growth.

Rather, the construction of new institutions in the public sector was exceptionally brisk. Prior to the s, the federal government did not venture much into substantial student financial aid programs. Rather, state and local policies produced low tuition rates at public institutions.

However, with the passage of the Education Amendments of , the federal government increasingly promoted college access, affordability, and choice. The showcase of this government interest was a commitment to need-based, portable student financial aid. These initiatives fueled dramatic enrollment growth. Though initially popular, by the emphasis on student grants shifted increasingly to providing low-interest student loans.

Expanded access and growing national investment in the higher education infrastructure increased the need for administration and planning both inside and outside the campus. Hence, higher education in the United States underwent a "managerial revolution" in its decision-making and attempts at coordination.

On another level this led to the proliferation of an increasingly complex academic bureaucracy. On a second level, it gave rise to a reliance on a prodigious testing industry. The capacity of the SAT to make determinations about college admissions and projections on college academic performance coexisted with doubts and controversies about the equity and validity of such high stakes tests.

The SAT expanded the nationwide search for academic talent, and enabled the historic institutions of New England and the Atlantic Coast to draw a large percentage of students from public high schools rather than primarily from nearby private prep schools , while attracting students from a wide geographic base. Despite the promise of standardized exams, by the s there would be intense debates over the ability of the SAT and other such tests to identify genuine aptitude without bias toward socioeconomic class or educational experiences.

Questions of social justice and the clash of national laws with local practices came to the fore in the decade following Brown v. In numerous states where public universities were segregated by race, policies were challenged. The southern campus came to be a real and symbolic focus of civil rights in American life.

Tensions and transitions: to Although American campuses expanded in the late s and s, many students did not feel they were well served. Crowding, lack of dormitories, and reliance on large lecture halls created the "impersonality of the multiversity.

Whether at such conspicuous universities as Berkeley, Columbia, or Michigan, or at quieter campuses, a generation of campus presidents and deans were unprepared to deal with widespread student dissatisfaction.

Furthermore, the nation was unprepared for the tragedies that occurred at Kent State and Jackson State in What governors and state legislators perceived as administrative failure to keep a campus house in order ultimately led to a loss of public and government confidence in colleges and universities.

This change in attitude, combined with a stressed national economy, signaled for the first time in decades a tapering in public support for higher education.

Double-digit inflation and an energy crisis, combined with warnings of a decline in college matriculation, left most American colleges and universities in a troubled situation between and the early s. Postsecondary institutions in the s enrolled an increasingly diverse student body in areas of race, gender, and ethnicity. Less clear, however, was the question of whether the educational experiences within those institutional structures were effective and equitable, as American higher education faced criticisms for charges of tracking lower income students into particular subsets of institutions and courses of study.

The end of the twentieth century. A fifteen-year period beginning in was a financial roller coaster for higher education in the United States despite the underlying growth of the enterprise. By the mids virtually every gubernatorial candidate ran as an "education governor," testimony to the hope that states placed in their colleges and universities to stimulate economic development.

Ambitious presidents seized the opportunity to "buy the best," whether it pertained to recruiting faculty, bright students, intense doctoral candidates, or, regrettably, even athletes. This period of opportunity, however, mortgaged institutions' futures—a situation that became clear to accountants and boards soon after declines in the stock market and state revenues.

Between and overextension and uncertainty loomed. Illustrative of the partial gains in equity and meritocracy was the changing profile of females in higher education, especially in graduate and professional students. Whereas in relatively few women pursued doctorates or degrees in law or medicine, by women constituted close to half the students entering law school and about forty percent of first-year medical students.

Women even constituted a majority of the Ph. At the same time, however, they were substantially underrepresented in such graduate fields as engineering and the physical sciences. Connecting past to present. One theme that pervades higher education in the United States in the second half of the twentieth century is that of a "managerial revolution.

It extended to include the development of professional expertise in fund-raising, as colleges and universities acquired voracious appetites for resources while extending their mission into new fields and even into new roles.

Higher education in the United States has succeeded in running its own operations while also considering new roles and constituencies. Its strength has ironically been its major source of weakness. In other words, the aspiration and ability of the American postsecondary institutions to accommodate some approximation of universal access has been its foremost characteristic.

Institutions' shortfalls in completely achieving that aspiration have been the major source of criticism and debate within American higher education. It is the perpetual American dilemma of how achieve both equality and excellence.

Grappling with the questions of educational equality and access has taken on increased urgency for two reasons. First, the widespread embrace of higher education as a means to legitimacy, literacy, and respectability strikes a deep chord in all sectors of American society.

Secondly, since higher education has acquired the strength and stability of being a "mature industry," it must then compete with numerous activities for a share of the public purse and private donations.