ABSTRACT
Higher education has become a major public issue for the first time since the late 1960s, when student demonstrations and occupations forced open admissions in many public colleges and universities. There are three questions that define the debate: the commitment of legislative and executive authorities to maintaining public higher education at a level of funding adequate enough to enable institutions to offer a high-quality education to students; who should be admitted and who should be excluded from higher education (the so-called access debate); and finally, especially in recent years, the question of curriculum. These three questions are neither simple nor simplistic. Regarding the access debate, should higher education be a “right” like elementary and secondary schooling? Or should it be, like its European counterparts, a privilege reserved for those who have a requisite level of academic achievement? In this debate, one hears such comments as “After all, not everyone should be in college; what about the millions who work in factories or offices?” Curriculum has been thrust closer to center stage. The chief bone of contention is whether the once-presumed liberal arts should be available to every college student; indeed, should every student, regardless of the discipline, be required to imbibe at least a sampling of literature, philosophy, history, and the social sciences? Or as some have argued-and many institutions have agreed-should students in technical and professional areas like computer science, engineering, and even natural science largely be exempt from such encumbrances? This argument applies to both high-level technical universities, such as Carnegie Mellon, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and Case, and to the large number of community colleges whose “mission” is now almost exclusively confined to preparing trained workers for the corporations with whom they have developed close relationships.
