Two Cheers for Higher Education

Why American Universities Are Stronger Than Ever—and How to Meet the Challenges They Face

Bibliographic Data

ID10759586
AuthorsMays Imad (Pima Community College, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume103
Issue3
Pages395-399
Publication date2020-08-01
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSoundings An Interdisciplinary Journal (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0038-1861 • E-ISSN: 2161-6302
PublisherThe Pennsylvania State University Press (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.5325/soundings.103.3.0395
OpenAlexW4246594978
LanguageEN
Citations received5

In this exceptionally well-researched book, Steven Brint provides a historical account of the developments that higher education in the United States has experienced since 1980. University and college administrators, as well as governing board members, would greatly benefit from this book because it offers a comprehensive perspective on how the American system of higher education developed in the late twentieth- and early twenty-first centuries and the challenges it currently faces.Although not unaware of the shortcomings in higher education—from student loan debt to the ongoing attrition of state funding for colleges and universities, from the decline in enrollment to the increase of the ranks of adjunct faculty, from the controversies associated with free speech to growing online competition—Brint, throughout his book, uses various indicators to provide a confident and optimistic take on how American higher education has responded to these challenges. For example, the amount of research and development dollars that have gone to universities between 1980 and 2010 went up nine times in constant dollars—not only funding by federal agencies but also by private donors. Likewise, the number of research outputs by universities went up exponentially. Another indicator he uses is growing enrollment; he argues that if the sector were doing extremely poorly, people wouldn’t want to go to college where in fact, between 1980 and 2015, enrollment has nearly doubled at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Brint argues that “Beyond the din of the latest protests about sexual violence on campus or controversial speakers causing an uproar, some remarkably positive trends have left American universities bigger, stronger, and in a more influential position than ever before.”1Brint delineates three “logics of development,” or ideas that have guided institutional practices and enabled them to expand and increase in prominence. The first and most established of these logics is academic professionalism—the traditional discipline-based system of knowledge creation and output. Then, beginning in the 1980s colleges and universities began to experience external pressures related to both innovation and diversity—those ultimately led to the second and the third logics that currently shape American higher education. The push to use and grow university research for advancing economic development through the invention of new technologies with commercial potential was made possible by investments by the federal government, private donors, and individual families. This push led to the second logic of development, namely, an alternative system of academic innovationism, including market-driven partnerships, especially with scientific and technological innovators outside the academy. The growing commitment to diversity and to use colleges and universities as instruments of social inclusion and equity led to the third logic of development, namely, social inclusion—the incorporation of once-marginalized groups through financial aid and diversity initiatives.Together, these three interconnected “logics of development” contributed to the growing intellectual and financial prominence of American colleges and universities. Brint also explains the challenges brought about by these logics. For example, the goal of and commitment to social inclusion also caused tension between proponents of diversification and meritocracy. Similarly, academic professionalism was challenged by major patrons’ (private donors and corporations) desire for innovation and economic mobility while academic entrepreneurs ignored their department and campus responsibilities and came with “nontraditional” (i.e., commercial) research agendas.While Brint’s argument in favor of American higher education focuses in large part on rates of research production and technological innovations, he is not blind to its shortcomings. Here is where the puzzling “Two Cheers” of the title begins to make sense. In chapter five, “Multiplying Status Locations,” Brint discusses the fact that despite the college-for-all era (discussed in detail in chapter four), there is a growing inequality across the American higher education system—within and across institutions. For example, within institutions there is a great disparity in adjunct faculty versus full-time faculty pay—adjunct faculty making minimum wage or less23—as well as funding for research versus instruction and STEM versus humanities. Across institutions, the differential funding for four-year research universities versus liberal arts institutions versus Tribal colleges and universities versus community colleges is especially felt by schools that serve the most marginalized in society—for example, private research universities spend five times as much per student as community colleges, and public research universities almost three times as much.4 Brint’s qualified approval of American higher education, if seen through the lens of those who have been and continue to be marginalized in and by the American higher education system, may not yield a similarly positive assessment.Beyond the loss of state funding, the book does not fully address the fundamental causes of the rise in tuition which continues to place huge burdens on individuals, especially those who are already struggling socioeconomically. Brint suggests that investment in college tuition is worth it: “College graduates earned more than $1 million more on average in their lifetime than high school graduates.”5 At face value, this claim is true—college graduates do earn more than noncollege graduates. However, the claim doesn’t account for the disparity in earnings of college graduates—the average masks the range. Similarly, Brint relies on economist Susan Dynarski’s argument to downplay the student debt problem—we don’t have a debt crisis but a repayment crisis.6 What seems to be missing from the discussion is the fact that student debt disproportionately affects marginalized students.7 In fact, a recent report from The Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS) shows that “Borrowers who default are largely the same students who entered college with disproportionate barriers to success, and who were more likely to need to borrow to get to and through school. The fact that vulnerable students go on to face higher risk of default compounds the inequities in our system.”8 Specifically, it is the low-income students, Black students, and first-generation students who are most likely to default at higher rates than their peers. Moreover, even for those students who manage not to default, their debt is not getting reduced.9Each chapter in this book is both thorough and accessible. Brint presents his “logics of development” in chapters 2–4 and the challenges brought about by the logics of diversity and innovations in chapters 5–7. The last two chapters are devoted to the ongoing challenges to American higher education. In chapter eight, “Focus on the Classroom,” Brint focuses on learning and presents the two competing movements that tried to improved learning (assessment and pedagogy) and how these movements worked and didn’t—overall, student learning hasn’t improved. In chapter nine, “Other Challenges,” Brint discusses practical suggestions for addressing the ongoing challenges currently facing American higher education—among them, rising costs, online competition, and free speech.Brint describes the American higher education system as both flexible and adaptable—growing stronger than ever in the face of challenges. Yet, if a system is no stronger than its weakest link, then one could argue that the rising inequality that is reinforced by the American higher education system means that even Brint’s “Two Cheers” is a generous assessment

Face (sociological concept · Higher education · Mathematics education · Political science · Social science · Sociology · Higher Education Governance and Development · Law · Psychology

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