Higher education in the United States


In the United States, higher education is an optional stage of formal learning following secondary education. It is also referred to as post-secondary education, third-stage, third-level, or tertiary education. It covers stages 5 to 8 on the International ISCED 2011 scale. It is delivered at 3,931 Title IV degree-granting institutions, known as colleges or universities. These may be public or private universities, research universities, liberal arts colleges, community colleges, or for-profit colleges. U.S. higher education is loosely regulated by the government and by several third-party organizations and is in the process of being even more decentralized.
Post secondary attendance was relatively rare through the early 20th century. Since the decades following World War II, however, attending college or university has been thought of as "a rite of passage" to which the American Dream is deeply embedded. Nonetheless, there is a growing skepticism of higher education in the U.S. and its value to consumers. U.S. higher education has also been criticized for encouraging a financial preference for the most prestigious institutions over less selective institutions.
In 2022, about 16 million students—9.6 million women and 6.6 million men—enrolled in degree-granting colleges and universities in the U.S. Of the enrolled students, 45.8% enrolled in a four-year public institution, 27.8% in a four-year private institution, and 26.4% in a two-year public institution. College enrollment peaked in 2010–2011 and is projected to continue declining or be stagnant for the next two decades.
Strong research funding helped elite American universities dominate global rankings in the early 21st century, making them attractive to international students, professors and researchers. However, this dominance appears to be challenged by China in the 2020s.
Higher education in the U.S. is also unique in its investment in highly competitive NCAA sports, particularly in American football and basketball, with large sports stadiums and arenas adorning its campuses and bringing in billions in revenue.

History

Colonial era to 19th century

Religious denominations established early colleges in order to train white, male ministers. Between 1636 and 1776, nine colleges were chartered in Colonial America; today, these institutions are known as the colonial colleges. According to historian John Thelin, most instructors at these institutions were lowly paid 'tutors'. As objects of the slavocracy, African slaves and their descendants also served as free labor for more than a century and a half.
Besides slavery, violence-backed cession was an aspect of higher education growth. This involved more than 200 indigenous nations, nearly 160 treaties and the appropriation of 11 million acres of land.
Protestants and Catholics opened hundreds of small denominational colleges in the 19th century. In 1899 they enrolled 46 percent of all US undergraduates. Many closed or merged but in 1905 there were over 500 in operation. Catholics opened several women's colleges in the early 20th century. Schools were small, with a limited undergraduate curriculum based on the liberal arts. Students were drilled in Greek, Latin, geometry, ancient history, logic, ethics and rhetoric, with few discussions and no lab sessions. Originality and creativity were not prized, but exact repetition was rewarded. College presidents typically enforced strict discipline, and upperclassman enjoyed hazing freshman. Many students were younger than 17, and most colleges also operated a preparatory school. There were no organized sports, or Greek-letter fraternities, but literary societies were active. Tuition was low and scholarships were few. Many of their students were sons of clergymen; most planned professional careers as ministers, lawyers or teachers.
The nation's small colleges helped young men make the transition from rural farms to complex urban occupations. These schools promoted upward mobility by preparing ministers and providing towns with a core of community leaders. Elite colleges became increasingly exclusive and contributed little upward social mobility. By concentrating on ministers and the offspring of wealthy families, elite Eastern colleges such as Harvard, Columbia, and Princeton played a role in the formation of a Northeastern elite.
In some areas, public institutions of higher education were slow to take hold. For instance, although there was general support for expanding access to higher education through public institutions, private colleges and universities successfully hindered the establishment of a public university in Boston, Massachusetts until the 1860s. The competition between private and public institutions shaped the development of the mixed public-private character of higher education in the United States.

Catholic colleges and universities

The Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities was founded in 1899 and continues to facilitate the exchange of information and methods. Vigorous debate in recent decades has focused on how to balance Catholic and academic roles, with conservatives arguing that bishops should exert more control to guarantee orthodoxy.

Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs)

Most Historically Black Colleges and Universities were established in the South after the American Civil War, often with the assistance of religious missionary organizations based in the northern United States. HBCUs established prior to the American Civil War include Cheyney University of Pennsylvania in 1837, University of the District of Columbia then known as Miner School for Colored Girls in 1851 and Lincoln University in 1854. The second Morrill Act required that states consider black students equally or found separate land-grant schools for them.
Protests for civil rights on campus began in the early 20th century, at Shaw University, Fisk University, Howard University and Hampton Institute. The protests often involved civil rights issues between black students and white administrators.

Timeline of key federal legislation and executive actions

At the beginning of the 20th century, fewer than 1,000 colleges with 160,000 students existed in the US. The number of colleges dramatically increased in waves, during the early and mid-20th century. State universities grew from small institutions of fewer than 1,000 students to campuses with 40,000 more students, with networks of regional campuses around the state. In turn, regional campuses broke away and became separate universities.
To handle the explosive growth of K–12 education, every state set up a network of teachers' colleges, beginning with Massachusetts in the 1830s. After 1950, they became state colleges and then state universities with a broad curriculum.
Major new trends included the development of the junior colleges. They were usually set up by city school systems starting in the 1920s. By the 1960s they were renamed as "community colleges".
Junior colleges grew from 20 in number In 1909, to 170 in 1919. By 1922, 37 states had set up 70 junior colleges, enrolling about 150 students each. Meanwhile, another 137 were privately operated, with about 60 students each. Rapid expansion continued in the 1920s, with 440 junior colleges in 1930 enrolling about 70,000 students. The peak year for private institutions came in 1949, when there were 322 junior colleges in all; 180 were affiliated with churches, 108 were independent non-profit, and 34 were private schools run for-profit.
Many factors contributed to rapid growth of community colleges. Students parents and businessmen wanted nearby, low-cost schools to provide training for the growing white-collar labor force, as well as for more advanced technical jobs in the blue-collar sphere. Four-year colleges were also growing, albeit not as fast; however, many of them were located in rural or small-town areas away from the fast-growing metropolis. Community colleges continue as open-enrollment, low-cost institutions with a strong component of vocational education, as well as a low-cost preparation for transfer students into four-year schools. They appeal to a poorer, older, less prepared element.
File:May_4th_Strike_Poster.jpg|thumb|A poster publicizing the student strike of 1970. In the 1960s and 70s, colleges and universities became centers of social movements.
During the 1930s and 1940s, fear for the future of democracy impelled colleges and universities to define general education as preparation for citizenship in democratic society. In response, social scientists engaged in curricular reform, creating new general education courses and experimenting with progressive pedagogical methods. The result was a widespread form of social science general education by the mid-twentieth century in U.S. higher education.
College students were involved in social movements long before the 20th century, but the most dramatic student movements rose in the 1960s. In the 1960s, students organized for civil rights and against the Vietnam War. In the 1970s, students led movements for women's rights and gay rights, as well as protests against South African apartheid.
Privatization of US higher education increased in the 1980s and during economic recessions and austerity in the 20th and 21st century.
While a few for-profit colleges originated during Colonial times, these schools became major factors in the 1980s to about 2011, taking advantage of federal loan programs to pay student tuition. For-profit college enrollment, however, has declined significantly since 2011, after several federal investigations. For-profit colleges were criticized for predatory marketing and sales practices, and very poor records in terms of graduates getting jobs and repaying loans. The failures of Corinthian Colleges and ITT Technical Institute were the most remarkable closings. In 2018, the documentary Fail State chronicled the boom and bust of for-profit colleges, highlighting the abuses that led to their downfall.