Historical Events That Shaped U.S. Higher Education

Introduction

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, U.S. higher education stands as an impressive enterprise. As an established industry of knowledge, higher education represents approximately 3% of U.S. GDP. Virtually every legislature and government body in the United States invokes universities and colleges as fundamental to the cultural, economic, and social development of the nation. Since the seventeenth century, American higher education grew to fruition in the subsequent centuries. Differences emerged with each new period of collegiate development, but history has remained one of advancing access.

Colonial Origins and Religious Foundations

Research indicates that there are key events that influenced the development and growth of higher education in the United States. Colonists established institutions of higher education for various reasons. New England settlers included numerous alumni of Oxford, Cambridge, and royally chartered British universities, and they believed that education was crucial (Goldin & Katz, 2008). Additionally, Puritans emphasized an educated leadership and a learned clergy. In 1636, their outlook led to the creation of Harvard College. Between the founding of Harvard and the beginning of the American Revolution, American colonists established nine other colleges and seminaries, though only one was located in the South.

Religion offered a crucial impetus for the establishment of colonial colleges. As the First Great Awakening of the 1730s–1770s initiated growth in various Protestant churches, each church sought to establish its own seminary. Moreover, each colony tended to support a particular denomination, and new colleges and universities thus achieved significance for regional development. Although colonial colleges were frontier institutions that expanded access to higher education, by modern standards they remained exclusionary and elite (Zemsky, Shaman & Shapiro, 2001).

With the establishment of the United States, government policies concerning English-chartered colleges were unclear. Wary of centralized state power, Americans maintained control of education at the local level. Colonial colleges' governance became nearly exclusively the jurisdiction of state and local governments. Colleges enjoyed considerable independence, as the famous Dartmouth College decision of the Supreme Court in 1819 demonstrated that the federal government would limit state intervention in college affairs (Mestenhauser & Ellingboe, 1998).

Government Policy and the Expansion of Higher Education

As the reputation of institutions of higher learning remained high, various state legislatures — particularly in the newer states of the Appalachian and Allegheny mountain ranges — looked favorably on supporting colleges, as long as no direct financial burden fell on the state. Consequently, between the early 1800s and 1850, the United States experienced a boom in college building, during which over two hundred degree-granting institutions were established. However, since many of these colleges depended entirely on local donors and student tuition, there was also a high rate of closure, and those that survived struggled to maintain their existence.

In the mid-nineteenth century, numerous groups and church-related liberal arts colleges established various special-interest colleges for advanced study. These included proprietary medical schools, agricultural colleges, freestanding law schools, scientific colleges, and engineering schools. Private philanthropy reflected a growing American interest in founding new institutions focused on advanced technical, engineering, and scientific education (Zemsky, Shaman & Shapiro, 2001).

Another significant development was the direct involvement of the federal government in higher education during and after the Civil War. The federal government provided political strength and financial support through land grants, expanding the scope and definition of university curricula. The 1890 Second Morrill Act and the Hatch Act continued the extension of federal government involvement in higher education by providing federal projects and funding to the new land-grant universities.

Conclusion

Since the Second World War, higher education has been linked to the process of massification — expanding to serve diverse students from different social and cultural backgrounds. Motivating this trend is a widespread belief in the ability of education to create economic and social mobility and in the social value of making higher education available and accessible to all people. Therefore, the development of higher education in the United States is an ongoing process aimed at achieving broader social and economic development.