Marvin Lazerson: The Making of Corporate U.
[Marvin Lazerson is a professor of public policy at Central European University in Budapest and an emeritus professor of education at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education. His latest book is Higher Education and the American Dream: Success and Its Discontents (Central European University Press, 2010).]
In the half-century after World War II, Americans built their dream on three pillars: a new house, new car, and higher education. Over time, higher education came to dominate the dream, for it was a statement about the future, opportunities, and one's children. As it became the only route to an increasing number of professions and the primary path to economic success, it generated greater and greater expectations, enrollments, and money. It became one of America's most successful industries. And it became the target of discontent and anger.
Few industries grew as fast, gained such prestige, or affected the lives of so many people. Higher education received remarkable sums of money from federal, state, and local governments. Alumni and foundations gave generously. Families reached into their savings and went into debt so that their children could go to college. Like the automobile industry, the education industry showed itself remarkably deft at marketing and at adding new institutions, programs, and facilities. Like the housing industry, it became sophisticated at showing individuals how to obtain financing, and it created financial-aid packages with generous dosages of public funds.
By the last decades of the 20th century, colleges had achieved a monopoly as the licensing agencies for Americans who wanted to improve their employment prospects. Every occupation sought to raise its prestige and income by making a college degree (and beyond) the requirement for entry. As the job market for those without college deteriorated into dead-end work at fast-food franchises, continuing one's education became a necessity.
The seemingly insatiable demand to attend college, the availability of government and private money with which to do so, and the desire of every state and local community to have its own college or university made it easy for higher education to charge what the traffic would bear. In the 1980s, tuition so substantially outpaced inflation and the growth rate of median family income that higher education looked like yet another greedy industry....
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In the half-century after World War II, Americans built their dream on three pillars: a new house, new car, and higher education. Over time, higher education came to dominate the dream, for it was a statement about the future, opportunities, and one's children. As it became the only route to an increasing number of professions and the primary path to economic success, it generated greater and greater expectations, enrollments, and money. It became one of America's most successful industries. And it became the target of discontent and anger.
Few industries grew as fast, gained such prestige, or affected the lives of so many people. Higher education received remarkable sums of money from federal, state, and local governments. Alumni and foundations gave generously. Families reached into their savings and went into debt so that their children could go to college. Like the automobile industry, the education industry showed itself remarkably deft at marketing and at adding new institutions, programs, and facilities. Like the housing industry, it became sophisticated at showing individuals how to obtain financing, and it created financial-aid packages with generous dosages of public funds.
By the last decades of the 20th century, colleges had achieved a monopoly as the licensing agencies for Americans who wanted to improve their employment prospects. Every occupation sought to raise its prestige and income by making a college degree (and beyond) the requirement for entry. As the job market for those without college deteriorated into dead-end work at fast-food franchises, continuing one's education became a necessity.
The seemingly insatiable demand to attend college, the availability of government and private money with which to do so, and the desire of every state and local community to have its own college or university made it easy for higher education to charge what the traffic would bear. In the 1980s, tuition so substantially outpaced inflation and the growth rate of median family income that higher education looked like yet another greedy industry....