ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the effect of higher education on the broad course of social evolution. The subject is of special importance because the presumed existence of social benefits is part of the case for subsidies to higher education. The basic educational task of colleges and universities is to help students achieve cognitive learning, emotional and moral development, and practical competence. For higher education to have societal effects, every college-educated person need not be a generator of social change. A higher education that generates disaffection toward society among its students may be criticized; yet such disaffection may be a source of social change and, with luck, of social progress. An important and very practical social benefit of education flows from professional training, in that the presence in society of a corps of competent professional persons may directly improve social conditions.
