The Future of State Universities: Issues in Teaching, Research, and Public Service

Abstract

Exponential growth in everything they are and do, a profound change in the other types of colleges and universities in the nation, completely new and surprisingly mixed forms of financial support, and a transformed American economy dependent as never before on knowledge, in general, and science, in particular-these factors combined have served as a powerful engine of transformation of our state universities. -Edward J. Bloustein, chairman of the Ad-hoc Committee on The Future of the State Universities of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, and President of Rutgers University. From the Introduction The Land-Grant Act that Abraham Lincoln signed into effect in 1862 began a true revolution. It provided a new conception of scholarship as neither removed from our daily concerns nor limited in access to a privileged few, and it opened wide for the first time the doors of higher Education to the children of farmers and the industrial classes. Public universities have changed greatly over the years, especially after World War II when the G.I. Bill increased enrollment, and the demands for basic and applied research for national defense and the private sector escalated. The distinguished contributors to this collection of essays focus their attention on the changes already undergone by the state universities with the goal of evolving a consensus regarding the directions their future evolution should take.