Abstract
This article presents an overview of developments in U.S. higher education at the present time. There is a large, continuing and inherent uncertainty about student demand and there is also uncertainty about the nature and extent of Federal support for higher education. A levelling-out in terms of size and of budgets is anticipated and the system is having to learn how to cope with the implications of a “steady state” rather than an expanding system. One of the results of a “steady state” is that state planning efforts are no longer aimed at merely managing growth; there is a new tendency towards seeking to evaluate and improve academic programs. The relations between higher education and the state, and the dangers of increasing state intervention into the heart of the teaching-learning process, are questions to which our best efforts at “planning” might be addressed.
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This contribution by Dr. Martin Trow is the first of a series of authoritative overviews of developments in higher education in different areas of the world. The next article in the series will be by Sir Derman Christopherson, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Durham, on developments in Britain.Ed.
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Trow, M. Notes on American higher education: “Planning” for universal access in the context of uncertainty. High Educ 4, 1–11 (1975). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01569098
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01569098