The definitive history of American higher education—now up to date. Colleges and universities are among the most cherished—and controversial—institutions in the United States. In this updated edition of A History of American Higher Education, John R. Thelin offers welcome perspective on the triumphs and crises of this highly influential sector in American life. Exploring American higher education from its founding in the seventeenth century to its struggle to innovate and adapt in the first decades of the twenty-first century, Thelin demonstrates that the experience of going to college has been central to American life for generations of students and their families. Drawing from archival research, along with the pioneering scholarship of leading historians, Thelin raises profound questions about what colleges are—and what they should be. Covering issues of social class, race, gender, and ethnicity in each era and chapter, this new edition showcases a fresh concluding chapter that focuses on both the opportunities and problems American higher education has faced since 2010. The essay on sources has been revised to incorporate books and articles published over the past decade. The book also updates the discussion of perennial hot-button issues such as big-time sports programs, online learning, the debt crisis, the adjunct crisis, and the return of the culture wars and addresses current areas of contention, including the changing role of governing boards and the financial challenges posed by the economic downturn. Anyone studying the history of this institution in America must read Thelin's classic text, which has distinguished itself as the most wide-ranging and engaging account of the origins and evolution of America's institutions of higher learning.

History of Higher Education Annual, Volume 23 provides insight into the struggle for civil rights and desegregation of Southern higher education, illuminating how this conflict affected private, historically black colleges and white denominational colleges, while interpreting the dynamics of segregation and desegregation in South Carolina. Other contributions examine town-gown relations for Harvard students in the eighteenth century and the challenge of creating an urban public university in Chicago. Review essays examine the demographic and cultural transformation of British higher education and the curious phenomenon of historical encyclopedias of individual colleges and universities. History of Higher Education Annual will be of interest to historians, sociologists, educational policymakers as well as those concerned with the future of higher education in the United States and throughout the world. Roger L. Geiger is Distinguished Professor of Higher Education at the Pennsylvania State University. He has edited the History of Higher Education Annual since 1993. His two volumes Research and Relevant Knowledge and To Advance Knowledge (both published by Transaction) cover the history of universities in the United States during the twentieth century.

The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture

Offering a broad, up-to-date reference to the long history and cultural legacy of education in the American South, this timely volume of The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture surveys educational developments, practices, institutions, and politics from the colonial era to the present. With over 130 articles, this book covers key topics in education, including academic freedom; the effects of urbanization on segregation, desegregation, and resegregation; African American and women's education; and illiteracy. These entries, as well as articles on prominent educators, such as Booker T. Washington and C. Vann Woodward, and major southern universities, colleges, and trade schools, provide an essential context for understanding the debates and battles that remain deeply imbedded in southern education. Framed by Clarence Mohr's historically rich introductory overview, the essays in this volume comprise a greatly expanded and thoroughly updated survey of the shifting southern education landscape and its development over the span of four centuries.