Full Description
Higher Education in America is a landmark work--a comprehensive and authoritative analysis of the current condition of our colleges and universities from former Harvard president Derek Bok, one of the nation's most respected education experts. Sweepingly ambitious in scope, this is a deeply informed and balanced assessment of the many strengths as well as the weaknesses of American higher education today. At a time when colleges and universities have never been more important to the lives and opportunities of students or to the progress and prosperity of the nation, Bok provides a thorough examination of the entire system, public and private, from community colleges and small liberal arts colleges to great universities with their research programs and their medical, law, and business schools. Drawing on the most reliable studies and data, he determines which criticisms of higher education are unfounded or exaggerated, which are issues of genuine concern, and what can be done to improve matters. Some of the subjects considered are long-standing, such as debates over the undergraduate curriculum and concerns over rising college costs.
Others are more recent, such as the rise of for-profit institutions and massive open online courses (MOOCs). Additional topics include the quality of undergraduate education, the stagnating levels of college graduation, the problems of university governance, the strengths and weaknesses of graduate and professional education, the environment for research, and the benefits and drawbacks of the pervasive competition among American colleges and universities. Offering a rare survey and evaluation of American higher education as a whole, this book provides a solid basis for a fresh public discussion about what the system is doing right, what it needs to do better, and how the next quarter century could be made a period of progress rather than decline.
Contents
Preface to the Revised Edition ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 Part I The Context Foreword (I) 7 Chapter One The American System of Higher Education 9 Chapter Two Purposes, Goals, and Limits to Growth 28 Chapter Three The Governance of Nonprofit Universities 44 Afterword (I) 72 Part II Undergraduate Education Foreword (II) 77 Chapter Four Going to College and Earning a Degree 81 Chapter Five Paying for College: The Challenge for Policy-Makers and Academic Leaders 98 Chapter Six Entering the Right College 122 Chapter Seven The Expanding Audience for Higher Education 145 Chapter Eight What to Learn 166 Chapter Nine How to Teach 183 Chapter Ten Prospects for Reform 201 Afterword (II) 220 Chapter Eleven Graduate Education Part III Professional Education Foreword (III) 249 Chapter Twelve Medical Schools 256 Chapter Thirteen Law Schools 271 Chapter Fourteen Business Schools 287 Afterword (III) 306 Part IV Research Foreword (IV) 321 Chapter Fifteen "Publish or Perish" 328 Chapter Sixteen The Changing Nature of Scientific Research 342 Chapter Seventeen The Environment for Research 358 Afterword (IV) 377 Part V A Final Reckoning Foreword (V) 383 Chapter Eighteen Matters of Genuine Concern 387 The Last Word 408 Notes 413 Index 453
