A History of American Higher Education | John R. Thelin

A History of American Higher Education | John R. Thelin | 3.5 Stars - decent introduction as long as other texts are consulted as well.

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A History of Ameri...

	A History of American Higher Education John R. Thelin The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004 - 448 pages average customer review:based on 5 reviews view larger image
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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.

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definitive study

No question, this study will rank with Frederick Rudolph's The American College and University and Laurence Veysey's The Emergence of the American University as a classic in its field. The scholarship is profound and the narrative lively and original.

3.5 Stars - decent introduction as long as other texts are consulted as well.

"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).

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okay history

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.

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Appreciate

I can appreciate the work put into the book. I took the book for it's writing style to give me a how to guide and what not to do. The book is so dense that it could not cover everything. The author was left to decide what was important and the information that is important to him is not important to me. The book was a requirement for a course so we could get background information of higher ed and I can definitely appreciate it's purpose.

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