Speculations about the Increasingly Indeterminate Future of Higher Education in the United States

Clark Kerr

A new century is now (1996) four years away. A new America is already here: an aging population, a reduced rate of increases in productivity and thus of available resources to meet faster increasing needs, and advancing worldwide industrial competition. The past century is now almost gone. It was a great century for higher education in the United States: 4% of the college-age population attended institutions of higher education in 1900, and over 40% in 1995; total enrollments rose from 238,000 to 15 million; there was virtually no research activity at the start of the century; but at the end, the United States clearly led the world, not Germany or Great Britain. It has been a golden century. [End Page 345]

What may the future hold? We cannot predict with any certainty but we can speculate and, perhaps, identify some underlying developments. We cannot control the future, but we can make some choices and identify some areas of potential influence.

In thinking about the future, I turn, without any hesitation, to Howard Bowen. Among our contemporaries, he has the best record: Facing the possibility of the great demographic depression of the 1980s, he set forth the startling "possibility" that there would be no depression. At that time, the standard prediction was an enrollment decline of 20-25% paralleling the decline in the number of young people of college-going age. Some estimates went as high as 40%, factoring in what Richard Freeman (1976) called the "overeducated American." The Carnegie Council (1975) predicted a decline of 5 to 15%. A member of our faculty advisory committee at Berkeley came to a meeting on a draft of our Carnegie report, slapped the report on the table, announced, "This is the most irresponsible report I have ever read," and walked out of the room. Many others felt the same way. Yet Howard Bowen (1974) said enrollments might actually rise. That prediction looked like the height of irresponsibility. But he turned out to be correct. Making that statement took a high level of analytical ability and great courage. He earned respect for both.

In the 1970s, Bowen (1980) was the first person to make a careful study of the rising costs of higher education and how they might be reduced. In the 1990s, financing higher education has become the single most overwhelming problem for American universities. In the 1970s and 1980s, Bowen (1982) set forth the prospect of "a nation of educated people" and of what effects this might have. This report still stands as the great vision for higher education and for the United States. In the 1980s, Bowen (1982) looked upon the neglect of teaching ethics as the great failure of American higher education and the greatest disservice to American society. Here was an area where higher education might influence the future.

Thus, in thinking about the future, I start with Bowen's (1986) lecture at the University of Iowa, where he had been president from 1964 to 1969. This address, which inaugurated a lecture series named after him, was titled: "American Higher Education: Problems and Opportunities." The lecture summarized his views as a long-time student of and administrator in American higher education at both the college and university level. ¹ I refer in what follows to his major "propositions" and my own reactions to them.

Proposition 1. "The future of higher education is on the whole not predictable." It is "inscrutable." Bowen made a strong case based on the immense [End Page 346] impacts of many past unforeseen developments: the Great Depression, World War II, the GI Bill at the end of World War II, the Cold War and Sputnik, the Vietnam War and student unrest, and the inflation and recessions of the 1970s. Since so much was "not predicted and probably not predictable," it follows that "academic administration consists not of orderly planning . . . but of adjustments to a continued succession of surprises" (Bowen, 1986, p. 8).

I note, however, that Bowen did not act the way he spoke. At Grinnell, at Iowa, and at Claremont, he is best known for his "orderly planning," not for his responses to "surprises." And he is best known as a scholar for his generally optimistic visions of the future. He did not write as if it were "inscrutable." He was, as noted above, more right about the 1980s, and far more right, than anyone else.

One confirming comment, nevertheless, on the "inscrutability" of the future of higher education--it is not just the advent of "surprises" but also the complexity of higher education that is involved. Higher education is not one thing and it has no one future. Public and private, elite and mass-oriented, vocational and liberal arts, large and small, urban and rural, religious and nonreligious, located in 50 different states--each campus has its own distinctive future. Thus the last report in our Carnegie (1980) series was called Three Thousand Futures, not one.

The future is "not predictable," it is "inscrutable," so just adapt to the "surprises." Good advice but impossible to follow. Bowen did not. I did not in California when working on the Master Plan or administering the University of California. Nor do most university and college presidents. Why not? First of all, we are all too oriented to the future not to be curious about it and to seek to affect it. Second, we make too many long-term investments--in buildings, in lifetime faculty appointments, in new programs that have eternal life. Yes, it pays to be warned, to know that the past is not the future. But it is all we have to go on in trying to visualize the future. It pays, therefore, to look at ranges of possibilities and at alternative assumptions and not to attempt to create only one specific projection, to be prepared to have all plans be contingent, to keep the future under constant review, to be prepared to adapt in order to survive.

Proposition 2. The "underlying strength" of American higher education is based "on [its] intrinsic value to our society" and on the "affection and respect that it commands among the American people." Bowen (1977) wrote for the Carnegie series on higher education's "intrinsic value to our society." He called his book Investment in Learning with a subtitle, The Individual and Social Value of American Higher Education. This book is still the outstanding statement on this subject. He concluded that the "monetary returns from higher education alone are probably sufficient to offset all the costs." And "the non-monetary returns are several times as valuable as the [End Page 347] monetary returns." Thus, "the total returns from higher education in all its aspects exceed the cost by several times" (p. 448).

The returns to individuals include higher incomes, more satisfying jobs, better care of health, greater consumer and investor efficiency, and more fruitful leisure. The returns to society include higher productivity, higher tax contributions, greater citizen participation, more tolerance among groups, and greater military security.

A more recent survey of the literature, The Economic Value of Higher Education by Larry L. Leslie and Paul T. Brinkman, confirms Bowen's conclusions. They also conclude that "going to college pays off handsomely, both for the individual and society" (1988, p. 17).

In general I agree with the two summaries of what is, by now, a very extensive literature, but I do have some caveats. James Buchanan in his lecture in the same Iowa lecture series noted that it is difficult to quantify with precision the specifics of some of the alleged external or social benefits--which is true, but he did conclude that the "quality of the overall social environment" is improved (1992, p. 21).

A more major caveat, I believe, is whether the benefits can better be ascribed to "investment in learning" or to investment in "sorting out," to what is learned or rather to identifying who is best at learning. Graduates from college do produce more, take better care of their health, and so forth; but is this because of what they were taught or because of what they were to begin with--their intrinsic mental ability, their motivation, their inherent sense of discipline, their persistence, and other internal attributes? Some studies suggest that half or even more of higher incomes may be explained by sorting out superior individuals rather than by the results of more learning (Weiss, 1995).

Another caveat is that Bowen looks more at the advantages than at the disadvantages of additional higher education. It is possible to have a surplus of educated persons forced into employments lower than their levels of expectations, resulting in great resentment, as apparently happened in Germany during the Great Depression and the rise of Hitler. Also, Bowen shows a moderate decline in "religious interest" as a result of a college education but says that any impact on "morality" is "not ascertainable" (1977, p. 133). There are those, however, who argue that there is a connection between "morality" and "religious interest."

Modern higher education is a product of the Enlightenment with its emphasis on reason, on science and technology, and on efficient management. The Enlightenment was neglectful of tradition and of faith and failed to develop any general ethical and moral systems of its own. The general public evaluation seems to be that the level of morality has gone down. If so, is the decline of "religious interest," at least in part, responsible and thus higher education? It must be recognized, of course, that "morality" is subject [End Page 348] to many definitions and is hardly subject to quantification. One of Howard's great themes (Bowen 1982), nevertheless, was that higher education should put more "emphasis on values" and that it should seek to "change the values of people." This, he said, is "perhaps the most important function of higher education as related to the agenda of the nation"--"the missing ingredient" (1982, pp. 126, 81, 132, 76). Unfortunately, however, most faculty members do not like to confront the issues of values in any broad way. It is not part of the scientific approach of the Enlightenment. Bowen, by putting such emphasis on the teaching of values, in effect, seeks to offset the emphasis on the scientific approach alone.

A further caveat is that it is difficult to separate an evaluation of higher education from an evaluation of modernity. Higher education has been a powerful engine in the spread of modernity around the world. There is, however, a rising revulsion around the world and in the United States against some aspects of modernity. Modernity is the great superhighway of the new world civilization, but it leaves ghettos of religious, ethical, and ideological rejects lying all around as it passes through. The benefits of modernity have been enormous, including higher standards of living, longer lives, and more tolerance. But many costs are now showing up, including greater inequalities of life chances among and within nations, negative impacts on the environment and on the sense of community, and an "iron cage" of rules as everybody becomes dependent on the behavior of everybody else. Since modern higher education is both a result of modernity and a prime source for its extension throughout the world, I think that higher education, at a mega-level, must be judged within the context of and in relation to modernity. At the least, one test of higher education is how well it identifies the costs of modernity and contributes to the reduction of these costs--how to decrease inequality, how to protect the environment, and so forth. For myself, I conclude that modernity was inevitable and is worth its costs, and so also modern higher education. I also conclude, however, that the agenda of higher education should concentrate more on the costs of modernity and their possible cures, including the decline of ethical standards of conduct.

Finally, on Proposition 2 and the "underlying strength of higher education," I note that Bowen felt that he needed to prove its intrinsic value--an assumption which had once been taken for granted. His book was written in the early and middle 1970s just after the student revolts of the 1960s when, for the first time in American history, there was widespread disenchantment with higher education. Higher education had become the home of what Lionel Trilling (1965) called the "adversary culture." Higher education was in a happier situation when it was taken for granted as a "good thing" than when it had to begin to prove its value in great detail or than when it had to advance proof that it deserved "affection and respect," as Bowen argued. "Intrinsic value," also, was viewed as highest when America [End Page 349] was more a nation of youth, including students in higher education. But it is now becoming a nation of the old in retirement. "Intrinsic value" was also greatest when major new scientific discoveries were being made and may lose value if and when "advances in knowledge" decline.

Proposition 3. Higher education is a "growth industry." Certainly this statement has been historically true. Harvard started with about a dozen students in 1640. In 1996, there were 15 million students enrolled in 3,500 American colleges and universities. In 1870, about 2% of the age cohort entered college; in 1996, over 40%. It was this view that higher education was a growth industry that helped lead Bowen to expect that the 1980s also would be a period of growth.

I agree, with one major qualification. This is that the prospects of future growth, inevitably, become less as growth proceeds. Participation within the age cohort will never attain 100% and we are already nearing the 50% rate. Participation beyond the historic age cohort also has its limits. Never again will there be the explosion that we saw in the years after World War II--from under 2 million in 1946 to over 8 million in 1970. Also, the current rate of growth may well become more sensitive to short-term conditions and less to underlying long-term trends. The value of a college education over high school in terms of life-long earnings is currently about 80%. The very process of growth in enrollments may reduce this rate of return as supply catches up with demand. The basic consideration will be what is happening within the labor market. Currently the comparative value of a college education is quite high and that of a high school education alone is very low. The rate of return, which is highly variable, will become increasingly important to enrollments, as will levels of tuition, and of state and federal subsidies.

Proposition 4. "The great need for improvement in the quality of higher education." Bowen identified these areas of needed improvement: more emphasis in the curriculum on basic skills and on liberal education, more emphasis on active, participatory modes of teaching, more attention to assessment of results (most tests of performance now are on the level of inputs rather than the amount of value added), and more rewards in teaching as compared with research and public service. This last issue involves a reversal of the tendency toward part-time higher education; Bowen estimated that one-third of all teaching was done by part-time or temporary persons, such as teaching assistants, that 40% of students attended part-time, and that even more lived off-campus without opportunities for full-time participation in campus life (1986, pp. 19-23). I agree with all of the above needed reforms. However, out of long experience and many disappointments, I see no hope of progress in any of these areas. I say this with great regret. And I would add at least one more concern and that is the deterioration of ethical conduct on campus, as in external society. [End Page 350]

Proposition 5. "There are good uses for any idle capacity that might develop over the years ahead." I agree, and particularly in the proportion of students engaged in full-time campus life.

Proposition 6. The deterioration of academic life in the profession, the decline of faculty morale, and the possibility of a "stampede" out of the profession. Here is the one area where I totally disagree with Bowen, although I know that he took these possibilities very seriously and wrote an entire book on the subject (Bowen & Schuster, 1986). When I first read this book, I accused Bowen of having deserted me, leaving me all by myself as the one remaining optimist. Bowen noted in 1986 that faculty salaries were not keeping up with the consumer price index, which had been true in some prior years in the 1970s; but a recent report of the American Association of University Professors ("Faculty Pay," 1996) shows that, at least beginning with 1983 and continuing to 1996, faculty salaries have risen faster than the cost of living while middle-level incomes, in general, have barely kept pace. Bowen also noted that the work environment for faculties had deteriorated, particularly with the less well-prepared students coming out of high school. Yes--but not by much, according to average SAT scores. And I would note that all of the studies I have ever seen rank college and university professors among the most highly satisfied with their jobs of any occupational group. Further, the supply of new PhDs, who mostly enter college and university faculties, has continued to rise (it was 34,000 in 1983 and increased to 43,000 by 1994). There has been no apparent "stampede" out of the profession over recent years.

Proposition 7. "Guarded optimism about the future of American higher education." Basically Howard Bowen believed that "the nation will not let higher education down" (1986, p. 31). He did note, however, that the time has come to concentrate on "efficiency," and it is to this observation I should like to turn first. It relates to the possible "precipice" ahead to which Bowen referred (1986, pp. 29, 9). This "precipice" is the result of a conjunction of two forces. The first is Tidal Wave II of students--the grandchildren of the GIs of World War II. They are already in the high schools and will start entering higher education in the fall of 1997. They may number an additional 5 million students by 2010, or an increase of one-third over current levels, and it took from 1636 to 1964 for American higher education to first reach a level of 5 million enrollment, a period of 328 years. The second force is the possible decline in the rate of increase of new resources, and a rise in the rate of increase in competition for their uses. This is the other blade of the scissors that is about to start cutting up higher education. The prospect is a situation far more serious than the Great Depression of the early 1930s. Income to higher education then went down, but the cost of living dropped even more, so that higher education in real terms was better off. Already in California from 1990 to 1995, state support to higher education [End Page 351] (UC and CSU) has gone down by 19%, and the cost of living has risen about 2% a year or 10% in total; for the 50 states the figures have been plus 7% and plus 10%--a slight decrease in real terms. Total federal R&D funding has roughly stabilized in current dollars but is under attack, and on a per capita faculty basis has gone down. Also, there is more competition for resources, as for health care and prisons. Higher enrollments and fewer resources are the main "ingredients" of what Bowen saw as a possible short-term "gigantic depression" for higher education.

Let me note quickly that, however "gigantic" the depression may be, it will not impact all of higher education equally. The elite private institutions that rely on tuitions and gifts from the top 20% of Americans in terms of income, who have been doing so well in recent times, may be nearly invulnerable, except for the great research universities that are heavily dependent on federal research and development (R&D) funds. Also, elite private institutions, by their own actions, can protect themselves from the impacts of Tidal Wave II, while community colleges and other public institutions must respond to their greater public responsibilities.

Let me also note that institutions of higher education have little experience with improving their efficiency. In 1930, expenditures per student for educational and general costs in constant dollars were $2,050. In 1990, they were $8,800. Howard Bowen (1980) once said that the general rule for financial affairs in higher education is: to raise as much money as you possibly can and then spend it all as fast as you can. A lot of money has been raised, and higher education has generally been more involved with spending more money per student, even much more, than in cutting costs and increasing efficiency. Also, higher education is organized so that those who control costs at departmental levels, for example by setting teaching hours and size of classes, are far removed from the pressures on those, chiefly presidents and trustees, who must secure the resources. In addition, efficiency is not a highly regarded consideration among faculty members; to them, the term mostly means lower quality. Another aspect of higher education is that it is easy to start new endeavors and almost impossible to stop old ones.

So what to do? Howard Bowen was among the very first persons to insist on greater concern for efficiency in American higher education. Two of his Carnegie books were on this subject. The first of these was Efficiency in Liberal Education (Bowen & Douglass, 1971). There he set forth an "eclectic plan" which could cut costs per student by one-half or more by increasing teaching loads somewhat, reducing the number of small classes in favor of medium and large-sized courses, emphasizing independent study courses, and using electronic technology.

Bowen's second book on this subject (1980) noted how much expenditures vary among institutions, by 2 to 1 or more, for what appear to be quite [End Page 352] similar results. Bowen related the basic differences in costs to the comparative affluence of institutions--if you have more money, you spend more money. Also, the size of an enterprise, up to a point, has a big impact on per student costs. In general, Bowen found that costs varied much more than value added; or to put it the other way around, it is possible to get more value added for less cost, even much less cost, with strong attention to efficiency, but close attention to efficiency is more often forced than voluntary. The prospective "gigantic depression" that Bowen foresaw in the short run will test the ability of higher education, for almost the first time in U.S. history, to find ways to maintain quality at less cost. Bowen at least strongly suggested that such an achievement is reasonably possible.

How long and how deep may this depression be? Bowen did not say, except to call it "gigantic." My own judgment is that it will be both longer and deeper than the two other depressions for higher education in this century, in the 1930s, as already noted, and the 1970s. The length is likely to be until the end of Tidal Wave II, which means from about 1997 to 2010. How deep? That depends, I think, on two as yet unknown developments. The first is what happens to productivity increases nationwide which fell from 3% a year during the first 25 years after World War II, which got us through Tidal Wave I, to more like 1% in the more recent 25 years. This economic fact led to the collapse of the American dream of universal affluence which is now so tormenting the United States. Currently, there seems to be the possibility of a revival of the rate of increase in productivity. But the future is very problematic. In particular, the great sources of productivity increases historically--agriculture and industry--now account for only about 20 or 25% of total employment. However, the electronic revolution should at some point show some favorable impacts on productivity. Nobody knows.

The second development is how the American people will decide to spend their incomes, which is central to the current national political confrontation. Will it be more or less on taxes, more or less on entitlements and which ones, more or less on crime prevention and on incarceration of criminals, and more or less on education including higher education? Developments in these areas could be, as Bowen said in 1986, "devastating" (p. 9). Yes, but we do not yet know how devastating. Colleges and universities today, as Bowen said, certainly bear "a heavy load of uncertainty."

Colleges and universities, also, bear a heavy load of responsibility. How will they adjust? Bowen noted, in his studies, the ways in which higher education institutions can produce the same product with fewer resources, even far fewer resources. They can also act, instead, in destructive ways. In the 1970s, they frequently did. They first cut library acquisitions, which are hard to restore, and reduced maintenance and replacement of plant and equipment, which is costly in the long run. I noted earlier that Bowen contrasted two approaches to the administration of higher education: one was "orderly [End Page 353] planning," the other was constant "adjustments." I think we need both--orderly planning for the long run and constant adjustments to "surprises" in the short run. Orderly planning concentrates both on what is most important in the long run and on adjustments to what is most necessary in the short run, but the adjustments should be guided by a clear view of long-run priorities. What is most important in the long run? I suggest:

* Maintaining access for qualified students.

* Maintaining core programs.

* Maintaining libraries.

* Maintaining faculty salaries

* Maintaining plant and equipment.

I suggest also that setting and maintaining priorities may require some centralization of decision making--either that or putting "every tub on its own bottom" which means that each unit must raise its own income and control its own expenditures. I prefer the former. Otherwise, many tubs will sink; and in some cases, this will be unfortunate.

I now turn to the question of how Bowen could at the same time, say that higher education stood on the edge of a "precipice" facing a "gigantic depression" and yet identify himself as a "guarded optimist." I confess that I fall into the same category. The explanation lies in what period is under examination. In the short and medium run, the next decade or so, there is great uncertainty and most likely a time of troubles. In the longer run, the prospects are brighter. Bowen counted on four positive aspects in the longer run:

1. The "intrinsic value" of what higher education does for society.

2. The belief that "the American people and their leaders" will not "destroy the legacy of higher education that has been built up over the centuries."

3. The ability of higher education to become much more efficient while maintaining its level of quality.

4. The national destiny to become a "nation of educated people" (see, in particular, Bowen 1982); and, as he said in his 1986 lecture, "there are plenty of uneducated people available" (Bowen 1986).

He concluded that "the higher educational community will not let the nation down, and vice versa, that the nation will not let higher education down" (1986, p. 31). This is also my hope, but I am not so sure that it is my confident expectation.

I would rely most on the first of Howard's four arguments--the "intrinsic value" of what higher education does. I think this value is high and rising. We live in a knowledge society and "advances in knowledge" have been calculated in the range of 40 to 60% in their contributions to advancing productivity. "Advances in knowledge" are now central to international economic competition and military security, as well as to any possibility of retrieving the American dream of universal affluence, and higher education [End Page 354] is also central to "advances in knowledge." However, as I noted earlier, American society is aging. "Advances in knowledge" might decrease, and both might reflect in more negative perceptions of intrinsic value.

I rely least on the third argument--the willingness and ability of higher education to increase its efficiency. It has so little experience in doing so and is structured so strongly against such efforts.

I also have doubts about point two--public commitment to higher education. As early as 1981, Boyer and Hechinger noted that higher education had suffered a "loss of confidence" because it was "no longer at the vital center of the nation's work." They observed: "For the first time in nearly half a century, America's colleges and universities are not collectively caught up in some urgent national endeavor"--to win a war, to educate veterans, to advance American military interests in the cold war, to implement programs of social justice. Instead, "higher education appears to be adrift" (1981, p. 3.) It no longer has the same sense it once did of "positive dedication to the service of an evolving dynamic, democratic community," of serving so actively "the basic needs of American life" (Brubacher & Rudy, 1968, p. 394). The Harris Poll on confidence in American institutions shows that 61% of those polled in 1966 rated higher education as commanding a "great deal of confidence"; this percentage fell to 36% in 1980 and declined still further, to 27%, in 1995.

I also have reservations about Bowen's fourth point--"a nation of educated people." ² There certainly is an almost endless supply of "uneducated people," but there is not an almost endless supply of jobs that require higher education. I grant that Bowen had an attractive ideal, but is it realistic? My reading of the history of higher education in the United States is that enrollments, both in general and profession by profession, mostly follow job opportunities, not intellectual and cultural and social interests, and that jobs requiring higher education will always fall far short of the total population. The dominant fact is that higher education serves the labor market; and enrollments will follow labor market needs, not intellectual, cultural, and social needs.

But, despite my hesitancies, I state that Bowen had generally, in my judgment, the soundest of understandings about and the greatest vision for American higher education. And I always say to myself, Bowen has been more nearly right about his judgments than have most of the rest of us. History warns us never to neglect to consider what he said, even though in my remarks I may seem to be more "guarded" as an optimist than Bowen.

Clark Kerr is President Emeritus of the University of California. From 1967-1980 he served as Chair and Director of the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education and Carnegie Council on Policy Studies in Higher Education. Recent studies include a fourth edition (1995) with commentaries on The Uses of the University and three books in the Frontiers of Education series for the State University of New York Press: The Great Transformation in Higher Education, 1960-1980 (1991); Troubled Times for American Higher Education: The 1990s and Beyond (1994); and Higher Education Cannot Escape History: Issues for the Twenty-First Century (1994). Portions of this paper were delivered as the Howard R. Bowen Lecture at the University of Iowa, March 26, 1996, in Iowa City, Iowa.

Notes

1. Bowen served as President of Grinnell College, 1955-1964, the University of Iowa, 1964-1969, and the Claremont University Center, 1970-1974.

2. Bowen never specifically defined this concept, but arguably he meant that all individuals would have a high school education and at least half would have completed four years of college. The Zook Commission (1947) had a similar goal which it defined as 14 years of education available to all, also adult education opportunities, equal opportunity for women and minorities, and "at least" one-third of the population completing an "advanced liberal or specialized professional education" (pp. 37, 38, 41).

References

Bowen, H. R. (1974, Summer). Higher education: A growth industry? Educational Record, 55(3), 147-158.

Bowen, H. R. (1977). Investment in learning: The individual and social value of American higher education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Bowen, H. R. (1980). The costs of education: How much do colleges and universities spend per student and how much should they spend? San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Bowen, H. R. (1982). The state of the nation and the agenda for higher education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Bowen, H. R. (1986, April 30). American higher education: Problems and opportunities. Howard R. Bowen Lecture. Iowa City: University of Iowa.

Bowen, H. R., & Douglass, G. K. (1971). Efficiency in liberal education: A study of comparative instructional costs for different ways of organizing teaching-learning in a liberal arts college. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Bowen, H. R., & Schuster, J. H. (1986). American professors: A national resource imperiled. New York: Oxford University Press.

Boyer, E., & Hechinger, F. M. (1981). Higher learning in the nation's service. Washington, DC: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

Brubacher, J. S., & Rudy, W. (1968). Higher education in transition. New York: Harper & Row.

Buchanan, J. M. (1992, September). Public financing for private goods: A new look at the welfare economics of education. Howard R. Bowen Lecture. Iowa City: University of Iowa.

Carnegie Council on Policy Studies in Higher Education. (1975). More than survival: Prospects for higher education in a period of uncertainty. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Carnegie Council on Policy Studies in Higher Education. (1980). Three thousand futures. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Faculty pay and the cost of living. (1996, February 16). Chronicle of Higher Education, 42(23), A18.

Freeman, R. (1976). The overeducated American. New York: Academic Press.

Leslie, L. L., & Brinkman, P. T. (1988). The economic value of higher education. New York: American Council on Education and Macmillan.

Trilling, L. (1965). Beyond culture: Essays on literature and learning. New York: Viking Press.

Weiss, A. (1995, Fall). Human capital vs. signalling explanations of wages. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 9(4), 133-154.

Zook, G. F., chair. (1947). Higher education for American democracy: A report of the President's Commission on Higher Education, Vol. 1. New York: Harper & Brothers.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]