History and development of the American university and its impact on society
The roots of the American university can be traced back in the setting up of the colonial colleges which include institutions like Princeton, Harvard, William Mary, and Yale that came up during the 1600s and the 1700s or just after the American Revolution. These institutions depended on the medieval sources and the Cambridges and Oxfords tradition to give out a set down curriculum of ancient classics, philosophy, mathematics, rhetoric, and Christian ethics. The goal in this was to offer education to a minor group of elite leaders for the church, the academic professions and the civilians for the new nation. Their aim was the maintenance of learning and its spread through teachings to the following generation. The immense population of the liberal private arts colleges in the country these days that provide baccalaureate degrees that take four years alone, goes on with these colonial colleges tradition in America nowadays.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century prior to the civil war in America, there was emergence of a completely new university in America. This university was in the company of the spread of western American settlement that included the states that had come up in the West Coast and the Great Plains of the upper part of Midwest. Cultivation started on fresh lands and there was connection of the American continent by the transcontinental railroad. This was to mark the beginning of the industrialization age in America.
The coming up of universities (that were new to meet the needs of this society that had just come up) started with the passing of what was called the Morrill Act that was passed and signed by President Lincoln in the year 1863. According to this act, the government issued out huge pieces of land to every state and the selling of these pieces of land was to avail the money that would be used to set up the universities in all of these states. This was the birth of a unique institution that was American the public university that was land-granted. Such institutions include universities such as the University of Minnesota, the University of California, and the University of Illinois among many other public universities. These universities had various functions. They were meant to offer training to a larger proportion of the population for ever in a society that upheld democracy. More so, they were meant to carry out research and offer training in applied fields especially in the engineering field as well as the agricultural field without leaving out the classical disciplines. These universities that were land-granted were the same as the Frances and Germanys technical universities. With the inclusion of the agricultural extension service later in time, these institutions were in charge of giving out knowledge of the modern agriculture to the American farmers in each and every state.
These institutions or otherwise referred to as the land-grant universities in those days turned out to be the foundation of the Americas public higher education. They were largely prosperous in offering education to the new immigrant population that was moving towards the west through the American continent. It is not by chance that, not within the West Coast, the universities that succeeded most were found in the United States of Americas upper Midwest where the basic activity was agriculture. These universities set up several schools that could offer training in the agricultural field. More so through the carrying out of research in the agricultural field by these universities, the American agricultural productivity obtained a big boost. In places where gold mining brought about the original settlements like in California, the mining industry together with engineering was of great importance. The combining of the research and learning in the land-grand university together with the combination of the traditional classical disciplines together with an important goal of bringing about the improvement of life in the rural areas in all aspects is actually one of the most important initial contributions the country has offered to the higher education.
Just about the same time the land-grant universities were being set up, America started feeling the influence of the German Universities. As Germany came up as an eminent place of learning during the 1800s, a growing number of the American people went to acquire education in Germany and in turn made an appreciation of the significance the ideal of Humboldts of bringing together the discovery of fresh knowledge with the passing on of the old knowledge.
Such universities as the University of California were highly influenced by the Germany universities. The leaders of the University of California studied in Germany and were strong Germophiles and tried to emulate the German universities with a lot of awareness.
More so, the colleges such as Harvard, Princeton among others that were historical colonial colleges started also to adopt the model of the Germany universities to start carrying out research. In the course of the last decades of nineteenth century, these universities started subdividing the classical disciplines which were at that time very wide and narrower in specific areas and the faculty turned to be organized in departments on the rising trends and became active in the disciplines of the organizations nationwide. During this period, many national organizations that specialized in disciplines emerged. These organizations included the American Historical Association that emerged in the year 1884, the American Institute of Electrical Engineers emerged in the year 1885, the American political science Association emerged in the year 1889, and the American Chemical Society came up in the year 1876 among other organizations that came up during this time. With the rapid increase in academic specialization, there was the growth of the curriculum, the setting up of the elective system which enabled the students to choose courses instead of studying the fixed curriculum. Going the German way, many of these universities started offering graduate degrees, with Johns Hopkins taking the Lead.
At the time when the twentieth century was coming to a close, the American higher education system was made up of the combination of these features from the past. Among the universities, some of them were private, relying on the students tuition fees, grants and revenues from donation for these institutions support. On the other hand, some of these private universities obtained support from the state governments, asking for small amounts of tuition fees from the students or at times even not and ownership of few endowments. The tradition of the colonial colleges was still followed by the Liberal-arts colleges the coming up of private together with public research universities also integrated some baccalaureate colleges cultures on top of the introduction of graduate degrees.
It is also important to note that, American universities as well appreciated applied research and professional education to a much higher level more than any of the forerunner in Europe. It would not be exaggerating the facts to give a suggestion that the universities that were set up on the model of the Germany universities existed basically for the advantage of faculty. On the other side, those universities that were set up basing on the English model existed basically for the advantage of the students. To a quite high level, the German model and the English model have survived together in an ill at ease tension all through the American university history in the time that has just passed.
In the course of the inter-war period, another fresh phenomenon emerged that was quite interesting. It turned out to be familiar to have a belief that the coming up of fascism and communism in the European countries posed a threat to Wests foundations. It was believed that the United States of America carried a burden that was special in sustaining the progress of the Western Civilization. Consequently, there was the introduction of a program in Western Civilization at Columbia. This program then extended to other campuses across the United States of American. This turned out to be a portion of the core mission of setting up a society that upheld democracy.
Important changes in the universities of America were brought in by the second word war. There was a call upon the engineers as well as the scientists to make their contributions to the war efforts. As a result, these experts came up with various inventions. Among them was the coming up with the radar whose development was in the laboratories at MIT. Another invention was the setting up of the first controlled atomic reaction that took place at the University of Chicago. More so, there was the Manhattan Project that brought all the scientists from all universities in America to Los Alamos to set up an atomic bomb. By the Manhattan Project going through, this was an indication that science could play quite a vital role in the national defense.
Another observable fact brought about by the Second World War was the big expansion of the universities in the United States of America. As a portion of giving reward to the veterans who were coming back from the war, in the other portion as a way of bringing about an immense influx of these veterans in the job market at the same time, and therefore pushing up unemployment and enhancing of the coming back of depression during the 1930s, there was an introduction by the government of the GI Bill which enabled the veterans to get money to go and study in college for four years. The GI bill brought about democracy in the American universities by offering access to a large number of young people who otherwise would not have been able to go and have education. More so, it brought about avenues to a much wider range of the population to the private universities. It created a work force that was very much educated and as a consequence, the economy of America was improved. There was an expansion in the universities both in terms of significance and the size.
A debate arose in the year 1947 at the Berkeley campus on the sense carried in acknowledging the research sponsored by the federal government. This debate was just the same as the debate concerning industrial funding these days. The Cold War invited important expansion government investment in the universities not just in the research that have had impacts on the defense of the nation. A National Defense Act was passed by Congress in the year 1958 for the first time. This act stretched beyond the concern in both science and engineering. The government as well gave out funds in support for the work in humanities as well as social sciences. Other fields that received funds include economics, sociology, foreign languages, and history. There was a generous provision by the government of fellowships in these fields in total. It was taken that national defense relied upon the study of other cultures such as those of Russia, China, Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia. The rapid increase in the number and size of the American universities during the 1960s was attributed to the dramatic increase in population as well as the investment by the federal government in the course of the cold war.
Among the most perceptive observers of the American universities during that period was the chancellor of the University of California by the name Clark Kerr who later became the president of the same university. He had a recognition that the modern university carried out its activities serving both the government together with the corporate sector and its structure clearly looked like the structure of the corporations. At the same time, he also had the recognition that the mission of the university education, particularly as it related to undergraduates, suffered as a result. His definition of the university ignited a heated debate at Berkeley in the course of the student revolt. The student revolt made a criticism of the connection between the university and the government and mostly during the Vietnam War. The student activities uttered words of resistance against how the university was organized and those words are still part of the history of Berkley and appear on the walls of the library of the undergraduate students.
Towards the end of the last century, various changes that are quite fundamental have brought in alterations in the nature of the American higher education and to a great extend, in the public universities. Among the initial changes in the recent times are associated with the public mood that is changing concerning the support that is provided to the higher education. In the course of the great expansion done on the higher education in the course of the 1960s, there existed a big support to the universities. The assumption was that the universities were a public good and the investment in this institutions met the needs of the public and that the main party that derived the advantages was the public. At about the start of the year 1980, a traditional mood was widespread among the people within the country and this brought about the election of Reagan as the president of the United States of America. This president took lead in a tax revolt that brought down in a systematic way the public investment in all the sectors apart from the national defense sector.
While during the 1960s the universities had been regarded as core to national defense, that idea dispelled in the course of the 1980s. More so, under the Reagans leadership, the government made a transfer of several costs that were associated to the states welfare together with health care. In the course of the tax revolt, the state governments which were the main source of public funds given to the public universities found much difficulty in going on investing in universities to the extent that had initially been set up. The idea came up that the group that mainly derived benefits was the students that acquired the university education and not the public as a whole and the idea turned out to be that these students should carry a higher burden for funding the university education. The universities faced with this challenge of the support that was going down together with substantial inflation had no choice but to raise the fees for the university students.
Since the start of the 1980s up to this day, for instance, the fees paid per year at the University of California have gone up to 3600 in the current times from zero in the early 1960s and 450 in early 1970s. In the course of turning public universities in to private ones, the biggest individual group of those who make contributions that are private are the students and they currently contribute approximately 15 percent of the budget of the university used to operate it.
The next blow to the universities has occurred in the shape of the immense analysis coming from the conservative movement itself. In the course of the Cold War, the conservatives of the United States of America were often disturbed concerning the universities even as they were aware that the nation had a reliance on them. Beginning from McCarthy epoch and through the anti-war movement that was there in the 1960s, these conservatives took on an express attack on universities, stressing the facultys oaths of loyalty, looking for ways to restrict the students and facultys action. They didnt go through bringing about changes in the universities but just in attacking them. Towards the end of the 1960s, it was eminent that a fresh strategy would have to be employed. This strategy was then to be developed by Lewis Powell who was later appointed by President Nixon to the Supreme Court.
Upon the request by an officer of the National chamber of commerce who was a friend as well as a neighbor, Powell made a response that was strategic to the perceived universities liberalism. Several calls were made by Powel for the Chambers efforts. The first was that the Chamber should come up with ways of providing funds for those scholars in the social science field as well as humanities with the views that were conservative. The scholars would in turn have a foundation that could not depend on liberal universities that were not in favor of their view. Second, Big Business should set up a network of the speakers that were well-liked and the media personalities who would make popular the conservative point of view especially by using the television. Thirdly, the interests of the business should bring about influence in the curriculum by making an emphasis that the universities business schools should employ their own social scientists and provide them with their own courses and thus bringing an insult to their students from the liberal notions of social science departments.
The effort undertaken by Powell was different from that of the conservatives who earlier on was to do away with liberal faculty members and this was an effort that had not succeeded. Powell did not employ a direct attack but instead opted for a conservative option. Powells program has greatly succeeded. There has been creation of conservative foundations giving support to the conservative scholars work. The conservatives have been able to give a picture of academic liberals as thinkers who have a closed mind holding on to a politically correct accepted view. These conservatives have passed out a message of a conservative doctrine while being able to convince the public that universities are under captivity of liberal ideologues who do not stand for any other points of view. They have been able to widen the curriculum of business schools among other schools with a curriculum that is not much liberal.
According to, today there are more than eighteen million students who are enrolled in over four thousand universities and colleges which are currently carrying out their operations within the United States of America. In the course of the coming few years there will still be continued rise in the number of students enrolling in this institutions and the number is anticipated to reach twenty million. Currently, about seventy percent of those people within the age bracket of between 18 years and twenty four years enroll in college and over eighty percent of the graduates from high school as well do the same.
The American colleges as well as the universities give a definition of their mission in regard to a political ideology which many Americans find it to slightly being strange. Of course this is the idea of diversity that came up from the praiseworthy goal of carrying out the enrollment of a larger number of the minority students in academic institutions but progressively metastasize in to a principle which emphasizes the American history is one of exclusion and oppression of minorities brought about in great part by the obligation of the nation to property, rights of individuals as well as the free market. The leaders in the academic field hold a belief that the work of the university is to make known this oppression and to undertake an initiative to compensate for it through provision of representation within the faculty, the student body, and through the curriculum for several groups which have fallen victims.
There is a continuous appeal in the promotional brochures as well as academic publications given out by the universities together with colleges. Some academics that look for advancement in their area of specialization have the courage to make the criticism or even raise questions about this doctrine.
Another development in the American university is the recent growth in the online universities like the University of Phoenix, Capella University, and American Intercontinental University among many others. This development is regarded by some people as a coming up source of competition for those institutions that are established. For instance, the University of Phoenix which is the largest online university has an enrollment of more than two hundred students and is taking joy of growing rapidly. These online universities have had the main appeal of the market of adult education putting much emphasis on those courses in the business field and the professional training. So far, there exists no strong confirmation that these programs can offer competition to residential colleges for the support of the young people for whom the higher education is tied up with being set apart from parents and the daily relation to the peers.
Some people have doubts that the courses offered online can make a substitution of the courses offered by the teacher in the classroom. There has been criticism made against the University of Phoenix that it has not been offering courses that meet the minimum academic standards and for hiring itinerant members of the faculty who just report and once again go away from one semester to another. It is yet to be clear that these online universities will in time offer competition that is serious to the four-year institutions that are already established.
There has been suggestions from various sources that new graduate schools, colleges as well as universities should be set up in order for them to be established beginning from the start on principles that are sound. Other people have advocated restoring a required core curriculum that has a base on the great books of Western Civilization. More so, other people make an urge for the setting up of fresh academic centers that have a base in some way on the American institutions ideals or on the Western Civilizations works. The conservative reformers have the knowledge that to bring change in the university there must be following of a course that is well thought out incremental action. There can not be the use of the plans of demand and argument which leftists used during the 1960s to invert their institutions.
The setting up of new institutions is an enterprise that poses several challenges nowadays in terms of the costs associated with it and the big hardship of getting over the advantages that are reputation of the established institutions.
As noted by, enrolling of international students will be highly emphasized in the next coming years. The programs in the academics of America will on the rise not emphasized with the reasons that these programs are parochial in the same manner as what was done to the programs of Western Civilization. In case universities as well as colleges go on augmenting their strength in finances, some of these institutions may get to level at which they will not any more depend in whichever measure on the grants from the government or any other kind of support from the government. It tends to be quite unusual and to a particular level impossible to bear in mind that the universities can operate on their own without attaching themselves to the nation that provides funds, offers protection as well as giving these institutions encouragement and yet it would have looked just as unusual a hundred years ago to have made an emphasis that these universities would separate themselves from all religious influence.
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