ABSTRACT
The University of Mid-America was the United States federal government’s most ambitious -yet unsuccessful-attempt to create an open university on a traditional institutional base. The rise and fall of the University of Mid-America (UMA) is an interesting case study of the problems inherent in consortia activities-especially consortia made up of large influential universities, facing a host of demands and priorities placed on them by constituencies such as their state legislatures, governing boards, faculties, and students.
