This, I think, is where historians, and especially intellectual and cultural historians, can provide a service. In my view, we need to better understand not just the structural changes in American higher education in the last fifty years, but also the broader intellectual and cultural changes that have accompanied them. Why should taxpayers share some, if not all, of the cost of higher education for all? To what extent should public universities be controlled by democratically-elected state legislatures, instead of being free to run their own affairs? And to what extent should taxpayers provide support for those students who cannot afford the cost of postsecondary education? These are questions that, to some extent, can be answered by economists and political scientists.8 But they are also questions whose answers are embedded in culture and politics.
Would you like to comment?
Join Diigo for a free account, or sign in if you are already a member.