ABSTRACT

The more than 4000 public and private four-year colleges and universities in the US are one of the least-often-mentioned byproducts of three centuries of successful US and global industry. 1 They have grown from humble beginnings to a powerful network of research centers, investment pools, and, in some cases, small cities, that collectively housed, fed, educated and trained more than 20 million students last year alone, while employing millions of university staff. Over the last 50 years, the percentage of the US population with a bachelor’s degree increased five-fold. Today, nearly one in every four people in the US has a college degree and more than half have attended some college. The growth of the US university system over the past half-century has greatly expanded the scope of the financial, intellectual and human resources that must be harnessed, but also gives an indication that there is historical precedent for rapidly changing the system.