Public Support of Higher Education

Abstract

JN THE following discussion no distinction has been made between the state colleges and universities and the privately endowed institutions relative to the means of support. While the problem of public support might seem to be a peculiar one for tax-supported institutions, at the present time all significant educational enterprises are held to be public in their essential character, without large emphasis upon the sources of support. All of them, in a broad social sense, are public property and have primary responsibilities to the public upon which they depend for their life, either directly or indirectly. Consequently, for the purposes of this discussion, it was not deemed logical to make any distinction between tax-supported and privately endowed higher education. One of the most prominent American educators recently said, in effect, that one of the greatest handicaps under which the American college is laboring at the present time is the fact that the parents of the young men and women who are in attendance do not have an adequate understanding of what the college is trying to do for its students and the community. If it had been relevant to his purposes, this educator might have made the statement a bit broader in scope and meaning. He might have said that one of the greatest handicaps in higher education at the present time is the fact that the people who support it, either directly or indirectly, do not have an adequate understanding of its character, purposes, processes, and results. In the light of this basic defect, this inadequate understanding of higher education on the part of the public, what are some of the important facts and principles which the public ought roughly to comprehend if higher education is to receive intelligent treatment and reasonable financial support? Among the lines along which the public ought to be informed and educated, to create intelligent relationships between the colleges and universities and the supporting public, are the nature of general education, the character of the teaching and learning process, principles of administrative procedure, actual and desired results of higher education, and the part of the public in the formation and control of educational policy. While the value of specialized