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The ‘Good Ol’ Days’: Life in the Public University

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Public Universities, Managerialism and the Value of Higher Education

Part of the book series: Palgrave Critical University Studies ((PCU))

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Abstract

At the start of the twentieth century universities were still small, elite institutions. In 1900 even America with a population then of 76 million had a network of only 1,000 universities and colleges enrolling some 160,000 students: fewer than 30,000 college degrees were awarded in 1900.In Britain the government began to get involved in the provision of higher education with the establishment of the Universities’ Grants Committee in 1917, enabling government funding for universities. Even so, in 1950 just 3 percent of the population eligible for tertiary education (i.e., tertiary-age population) in the United Kingdom were enrolled in higher education. Drawing on Forsyth (2014), we can make the same point vividly for Australia: she notes that in 1857, Australia had fewer than 140 university students. By 1911 this had grown to some 2,445 students (2,000 of them men) out of a total population of 4.4 million (Booth and Kee 2010: 4). Even in 1946 there were just over 17,000 university students, representing barely 2.3 percent of the age group between 17 and 22.

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  1. School of Global, Urban & Social Science, RMIT University, Australia, Melbourne, Australia

    Rob Watts

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Watts, R. (2017). The ‘Good Ol’ Days’: Life in the Public University. In: Public Universities, Managerialism and the Value of Higher Education. Palgrave Critical University Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53599-3_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-53599-3_3

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