Meeting the Challenge: - The Council of Independent Colleges

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John R. Thelin Enrollment, Public and Private Nonprofit Colleges and Universities: 1947–2002 14,000,000 Number of Students Enrolled 12,000,000 10,000,000 8,000,000 6,000,000 4,000,000 2,000,000 0 1947 1952 1957 1962 1967 1972 1977 1982 1987 1992 1997 2002 Public Private Non-Profit Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics enrollment—not because of shrinkage or attrition, but because public institutions increased in number and enrollment at an unprecedented rate between 1950 and 1980 (see chart). Americans have always been quick to associate quality with quantity, in nearly every facet of national life. The country’s economic health, for example, is reported in terms of the Gross National Product. Marketing campaigns extol jumbo-size products at supermarkets and fast-food restaurants. In Detroit between 1955 and 1970, General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler added tail fins and trunk space to every model automobile; now they promote SUVs. The slogan “bigger is better” was especially tempting for American higher education in the mid-20 th century. It appealed to governors and state legislators who sought immediate fulfillment of their pledges to provide mass access to postsecondary education. The expanded public campus was hailed as an expedient and affordable solution to the “baby boom” of students who would soon be making their way through high school and on to college. More than a few universities in the independent sector also embraced plans to expand their size and mission. When confidence in the benefits of bigness was applied to policies and programs, it heralded the age of the “multiversity”—with the American university described as a “knowledge factory” by its leaders. Compare the growth of public institutions in the latter part of the 20 th century with the typical size of state universities less than 100 years earlier. The University of Illinois and the University of Minnesota, for example, each had total enrollments in 1910 of fewer than 2,000 students. 5
Small by Design: Resilience in an Era of Mass Higher Education Small private liberal arts colleges not only survived but thrived on their ability to Just before World War II, the flagship state universities of Oregon, Colorado, Kansas, Georgia, and Virginia enrolled fewer than 6,000 students each. By 2000 most of these institutions had enrollments of more than 20,000 on the main campus, with thousands of additional students at their new branch campuses. The University of Minnesota alone grew from barely 1,700 students to more than 60,000 students at its main Minneapolis and St. Paul campuses in less than a century. Such a quantitative change in higher education required a shift in educational philosophy. In 1949, Life magazine featured an article about the University of California. The president and dean stated that it was preferable to have 500 students in a lecture hall taught by the most notable scholar in the nation than to have smaller classes taught by scholars of lesser stature. Bear in mind, however, that their statement was a belief, not a research finding. Here was the philosophical difference that set small private colleges apart from the multiversity: college leaders believed that small class size, a small student body, and the close interactions of campus life were important parts of a sound undergraduate education. That commitment was crucial in shaping what the small independent colleges would—and would not—do in the late-20 th century. Although the commitment to smallness also began as a belief, we shall see that it has stood the test of rigorous empirical scrutiny by social and behavioral science researchers over the decades since. The convictions about sound undergraduate pedagogy held at the small colleges meant, for starters, that they could not accommodate a large share of the longterm, nationwide growth in college attendance. In 1950, undergraduate enrollments in the United States were almost evenly divided between institutions in the private and public sectors. By 1980 the public sector—including state colleges and universities as well as community colleges—enrolled about 79 percent of all undergraduates. This proportion has persisted into the 21 st century. One could infer from the data that the independent sector has declined in appeal and that students have shifted overwhelmingly to public institutions. Historical context suggests a different, more nuanced explanation for this statistical summary. Over the past five decades, enrollments in private institutions—a group that includes almost all small colleges—have shown healthy gains, doubling between 1950 and 1980. By 2001 independent colleges and universities enrolled more than three million students—about 23 percent of the national total for all degree-seeking students. Many small colleges, however, deliberately chose to remain relatively small for sound 6
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Morris College / Sumter, SC / 1908
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Illinois / Augustana College / Auro
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Rhode Island / Roger Williams Unive
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Arkansas / Arkansas’ Independent
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Alexander W. Astin and Calvin B.T.
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Meeting the Challenge: - The Council of Independent Colleges

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