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Forces in Tension: The State, Civil Society and Market in the Future of the University

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Thinking about Higher Education

Abstract

The year 2013 marks the fiftieth anniversary of Clark Kerr’s Godkin Lectures at Harvard University, published in the first edition of his influential work, The Uses of the University (Kerr 1963).

Although it is one of our oldest social institutions, the university today finds itself in a quite novel position in society. It faces its new role with few precedents to fall back on, with little but platitudes to mask the nakedness of the change. Instead of platitudes and nostalgic glances backward to what it once was, the university needs a rigorous look at the reality of the world it occupies today—Clark Kerr, The Uses of the University 1963.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Throughout this chapter I distinguish between colleges, which may be either 2-year or 4-year and primarily serve undergraduates, universities, which include Master’s level graduate training, research, and perhaps professional schools, and research universities, which incorporate undergraduate education, graduate and professional schools, doctoral programs, and high levels of research. When referring to the arena of higher education, or the higher education system, I include all of these institutions as providers of postsecondary education.

  2. 2.

    IPEDS further divides institutions under “private control” into three smaller categories, Private Not For-Profit, Private Not For-Profit—Religious Affiliation, and Private For-Profit (IPEDS Glossary, 2012–2013).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Curry School of Education, University of Virginia, 405 Emmet St S, Charlottesville, VA, 22904, USA

    Brian Pusser

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  1. Institute for Work Based Learning, Middlesex University, London, United Kingdom

    Paul Gibbs

  2. Institute of Education, London University, London, United Kingdom

    Ronald Barnett

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Pusser, B. (2014). Forces in Tension: The State, Civil Society and Market in the Future of the University. In: Gibbs, P., Barnett, R. (eds) Thinking about Higher Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-03254-2_6

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