A History of American Higher Education (Paperback)

by John R. Thelin (Author) "The historic colleges founded in the colonial era enjoy a special place in our national memory..." (more)
Key Phrases: new national period, research grant dollars, historic colleges, United States, University of California, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"I do believe that the book is worthy of being the major new overview of U.S. higher education." -- Michael W. Simpson, Education Review

"A readable and concise introduction to this subject, it propels audience members to develop an appreciation for the heterogeneous... academe story as a whole." -- Todd C. Ream, Teachers College Record

"Apart from being first-rate historical interpretation, Thelin's book offers several advantages that should make it attractive to the general reader as well as the scholar... His writing is brisk, concise, and humorous... Part public policy analyst and part social historian, Mr. Thelin weaves a tight narrative that keeps moving. He gives you the view from the administrative building, and he also tells you, often with accompanying photos, what students were like." -- Art Jester, Lexington Herald-Leader

"This book was extremely well written and meticulously documented." -- NACADA

"Well written and engaging... retains the reader's attention... Thelin has raised the bar for historians of higher education to clear." -- Theodore J. Weidner, Faciities Manager

"Thelin offers an historical analysis of contemporary trends and issues in higher education today, e.g., access, affordability, accountability, and assessment. How colleges addressed those issues within different periods of time and societal contexts makes for a more enlightened image of higher education in the US as it exists today." -- Choice

"Fills a real need in the scholarship... Accessible and informative, providing a reasonable foundation on which to build a rich understanding of the development of American higher education." -- Julie A. Reuben, Register of the Kentucky Historical Society

"Destined to be the standard work in this area for years to come." -- James J. Rhatigan, Journal of College Student Development

"Despite its age, Rudolph's single-volume history has endured... Now John Thelin's A History of American Higher Education provides a worthy replacement." -- Jana Nidiffer, History of Education Quarterly

"This is a splendid book, by far the best to appear on the subject since the 1962 publication of Frederick Rudolph's The American College and University: A History. John Thelin's work will supplant Rudolph's as the dominant overview of the history of American higher education. Comprehensive but not encyclopedic, Thelin's account is interspersed with lively anecdotes and a creative emphasis on cultural history that will keep the attention of readers. It is a tour de force." -- Thomas G. Dyer, University of Georgia

Product Description
Colleges and universities are among the most cherished institutions in American society—and also among the most controversial. Yet affirmative action and skyrocketing tuition are only the most recent dissonant issues to emerge. Recounting the many crises and triumphs in the long history of American higher education, historian John Thelin provides welcome perspective on this influential aspect of American life.

In A History of American Higher Education, Thelin offers a wide-ranging and engaging account of the origins and evolution of America's public and private colleges and universities, emphasizing the notion of saga—the proposition that institutions are heirs to numerous historical strands and numerous attempts to address such volatile topics as institutional cost and effectiveness, admissions and access, and the character of the curriculum. Thelin draws on both official institutional histories and the informal memories that constitute legends and lore to offer a fresh interpretation of an institutional past that reaches back to the colonial era and encompasses both well-known colleges and universities and such understudied institutions as community, women's, and historically black colleges, proprietary schools, and freestanding professional colleges.

Thelin's lively history has particular relevance for a society still struggling to determine what constitutes a legitimate field of study, reminding readers that Harvard once used its medical school as a safe place to admit the sons of wealthy alumni who could not pass the undergraduate college admissions examination and that the University of Pennsylvania once considered the study of history, government, and economics unworthy of addition to the liberal arts curriculum. Thelin also addresses the role of local, state, and federal governments in colleges and universities, as well as the influence of private foundations and other organizations. And through imaginative interpretation of films, novels, and popular magazines, he illuminates the convoluted relationship between higher education and American culture. For anyone attempting to understand America's colleges and universities, A History of American Higher Education offers a much-needed challenge to conventional wisdom about how these institutions developed and functioned in the past.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press (May 12, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0801880041
• ISBN-13: 978-0801880049
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #23,510 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #11 in	Books > Nonfiction > Education > Education Theory > History
  #39 in	Books > Nonfiction > Education > Policy
  #40 in	Books > Nonfiction > Education > Education Theory > Educational Reform

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 3.5 Stars - decent introduction as long as other texts are consulted as well., July 29, 2006

By	J. Stoner "Plants and Books" (Parkville, MO United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"A History of American Higher Education" is a nice introduction into the topic of college history. However, it is most definately not definitive. Any reader would benefit from consulting other texts (which I will list at the end of this review). The book does focus heavily on the ivy league schools; but, for good reason because much of the early developing history of higher education happens at these schools (since they were the first schools).

This was one of the texts for a class I took and over the course of the course we (as a class) had some questions and were confused about some parts of the book so we emailed Thelin and he promptly answered our questions.

If you are interested in the history of higher education then I recommend the following texts to be read in conjunction with each other because none of the following are stand-alone and definitive texts in the subject matter.

"American College and University: A History" by Frederick Rudolph
"American Higher Education" by Christopher Lucas
"Campus Life: Undergraduate Cultures from the End of the Eighteenth Century to the Present" by Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz

And, for a well-researched look into the history of admissions at three ivy league schools (Harvard, Yale, and Princeton) I recommend "The Chosen" by Jerome Karabel.

Finally, if you are interested in the history of co-operative living I highly recommend the following historical account about the University of Kansas: "Making Do and Getting Through" by Fred McElhenie (it is locally published for the University of Kansas by Oread Books).

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars okay history, April 12, 2005

By	R Smith "R Smith" (chicago, il) - See all my reviews

The book adds a few interesting and new insights to the history of higher education canon. Despite the author's status as a full-time professor, the writing style is clear and concise. Also, the author should receive praise for making history relevant in contemporary policy debates and disspelling several myths about the history of higher education.

On the other hand, this book mainly covers the history of ivy league institutions and the 30 or so national selective public and private universities. Maybe the quest for a comprehensive history of higher education -- one that truly covers all colleges and all students -- is elusive and perhaps impossible, but I remain hopeful someone will someday pull it off.

Bottom line: a pretty decent introduction to the history of higher education.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Major Disappointment, August 22, 2007

By	Historian&Educator "Historian&Educator" (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

It is evident that the Hopkins Press and Mr. Thelin recognized that Rudolph's history was long-in-the-tooth, and that this created a market for a new textbook for the standard history of higher education course to which far too many graduate students are needlessly subjected. But more to the point, like others in the field, my time is valuable, and I find it extremely troubling when I read a new work in the field only to find that it offers little fresh information about America's myriad of colleges and universities and nothing in the way of a new perspective on the inter-play of these institutions and the larger American culture and its economy. Most importantly, the work continues the regretable behavior of "educators" to treat their institutions -- from the primary grades to the university -- as essentially insulated from the larger culture upon which they depend for their very being. This serious flaw in the work is evident in its one sentence mention of the local conflict that arose from the decision to relocate Yale College to New Haven. To the vast majority of Americans, a college or university is important largely as a source of jobs, well-educated residents, and the addition of student tuition and fees into the local economy. To pass over this central dimension of the perceived value and meaning of a college or university to a substantial portion of American society is simply to write yet another INSTITUIONAL history, which merely passes on the author's replication of some arbitrarily selected primary documents that can, in our electronic age, be done as easily by anyone who can ask the right question for a Google search. Interested in the early history of William and Mary (apparently a particular focus of Thelin, even though most of its historical records were lost in an horrific fire in the early 19th century)? Ask Google. But if a reader wants to better understand the complex interplay between higher education and American society (such as, for example, the relationship between Thayer's reforms at West Point and the preparation of a generation of faculty prepared to instruct the nation's first generation of college-educated mechanical engineers, something never intended by Congress when it authorized West Point in 1802), this work breaks no new ground. It is merely a well-timed work that takes advantage of Rudolph being so seriously dated, thereby ensuring its wide use, but which fails to provide historians with anything new with respect to our analysis of higher education's place in the development of America's culture, economy and political systems. Thelin reminds us that it is time to end the separate treatment of education's history and integrate its study into the discipline from which it wrongly broke off.