AN UNLIKELY TRIUMPH
O colleges could make changes without seeking permission from the education minister or the bishop. Presidents were the CEOs of the enterprise, and their clear mission was to maintain the viability of the college and expand its prospects. They had to make the most of the advantages offered to them by geography and religious affiliation, and to adapt quickly to shifts in position relative to competitors concerning such key institutional matters as program, price, and prestige. The alternative was to go out of business. Between 1800 and 1850, 40 liberal arts colleges closed, 17% of the total. Successful colleges were also deeply rooted in isolated towns across the country. They represented themselves as institutions that educated local leaders and served as cultural centers for their communities. The college name was usually the town’s name. The colleges that survived the mid-19th century were well- poised to take advantage of the coming surge of student interest, new sources of funding, and new rationales for attending college. U.S. colleges retained a populist aura. Because they were located in small towns all across the country and forced to compete with peers
elitism. The college was an extension of the community and denomination, a familiar local presence, a source of civic pride, and a cultural avatar representing the town to the world. Citizens did not have to have a family member connected with the school to feel that the college was theirs. This kind of populist base of support came to be enormously important when higher education enrollment started to skyrocket. The system had to make students happy, which meant an academic programme that was not overly challenging. O ne final characteristic of the U.S. model of higher education was its practicality. As it developed in the mid-19th century, the higher-education system incorporated this practical orientation into the structure and function of the standard-model college. The land-grant college was both an effect and a cause of the cultural preference for usefulness. The focus on the useful arts was written into the DNA of these institutions, as an expression of the U.S. effort to turn a college for gentlemen or intellectuals into a school for practical pursuits, with an emphasis on making things and making a living, rather than on gaining social polish or exploring the cultural heights. And this model spread widely to the other parts of the system. The result was not just
in the same situation, they became more concerned about survival than academic standards. As a result, the U.S. system took on a character that was middle-class rather than upper-class. Poor families did not send their children to college, but ordinary middle-class families could. Admission was easy, the academic challenge moderate, the tuition manageable. This created a broad popular foundation for the college that saved it, for the most part, from Oxbridge-style
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