Trends in University Summer Sessions

Abstract

In an era when collegiate enrollments are declining and increasing proportions of regular term students are continuing their education during the summer, the nature of university summer session operations takes on renewed interest. Since 1891, when Harper introduced the summer session as a higher education innovation at the University of Chicago, formally organized summer sessions have been an increasingly important part of total university operations. Although reasons for its importance and primary clientele served have varied over the last nine and a half decades, little attention has been devoted by higher education scholars to the development of information on a nation-wide basis about the nature and characteristics of summer sessions. That summer sessions can be used to at-