Higher education in America is considered a formidable enterprise established as a knowledge industry that can produce about 3 percent of the gross national product. Colleges and universities are considered by every governor and legislature to be key components of the state and cultural development. Over 4000 accredited institutions enroll more than fifteen million students and confer at least two million degrees annually(Bound et al., 2020). Universities and colleges spend up to $26 billion per annum on research and development projects, of which $16 billion is provided for by the federal agencies (Bound et al., 2020). The expertise of research universities is recognized globally. The successful growth and expansion of universities and colleges in America began about 300 years ago, in the seventeenth century(Bound et al., 2020). There has been a lot of growth and development of higher learning systems to expand access to higher education.
The colonial period was marked by very little growth in colleges. The imperial government allocated little investment into colleges because their main emphasis was on exporting raw material and agricultural products. Colonists created higher education institutions because most New England alumni were alumni of Cambridge, Oxford, and other royally chartered British universities. Thus, they believed in the importance of education. More so, Puritans emphasized that the clergy and civil leaders had to be learned. Harvard College was developed in 1636, after which nine other colleges and seminaries were chartered in the south before the American Revolution(Hutcheson, 2019). Religion was a significant impetus for the development of colonial colleges. During the Great Awakening, many protestant churches believed that colleges were important for religious development. Since every colony favored a particular denomination, new colleges sprang up all over America. The colleges were small and enrolled just about one hundred students. Very few graduated. Only white males were allowed to enroll, and they went on to become key personnel in America’s history. Females and black Americans were not allowed to participate in custom and statute (Hutcheson, 2019).
The New United States brought forth a lot of changes in the system of higher education. Colonial colleges were placed under the jurisdictions of local and state governments. The Supreme Court ruled that the federal government had to protect colleges from state interventions. Over two hundred colleges were built in 1800-1850, but most of them had to be closed as they could not survive on tuition fees and locale donors(Hutcheson, 2019). Several new fields emerged in formal studies, such as science and engineering. Law and medicine were taught in separate universities. Attending college was not expensive, rather the fear of potential loss of opportunities over the years of pursuing a college education. The degrees were a source of prestige and offered some professional advantage, but this was thought to outweigh the costs. The Second Great Awakening gave rise to new denominations, which led to more schools and colleges. Small liberal colleges developed in the Northeast became important incubators for the middle class. Educational opportunities for women were presented to fill the demand for trained teachers due to the “common school movement” in the 1830s(Crow & Dabars, 2020). Women got a chance to be financially independent. They would attend normal schools or female seminaries and later get employed as teachers in the expanding nation (Crow & Dabars, 2020).
The mid-nineteenth century saw the growth of colleges by various groups with a particular interest in advanced studies. They developed agricultural colleges, free-standing law schools, scientific colleges, medical schools, and engineering schools. The federal government became directly involved in higher education, and the Morrill act of 1862 came to be. The so-called Land Grant Colleges Act (LGCA) was an elaborate program to use the state received profits from the sale of allotted western lands to develop colleges for agriculture, military, and mechanical sciences. There was an increase in (LGCA) support between 1887 and 1914 that raised its political strength and expanded the scope and definition of university curricula(Stein, 2020). The second Morrill Act of 1890 further expanded the federal government’s involvement in education in terms of funding and bringing projects to the land-grant campuses. It also provided educational opportunities for African-Americans by funding for Negro colleges. Federal funding enabled the government to address local racial segregation and shift most American Colleges (Stein, 2020).
The Age, if the University was between 1870 and 1910, was marked by a surge in prospective students and benefactors(Kezar & Bernstein, 2020). Colleges gained a lot of recognition, support, and popularity. Commercial and industrial expansion brought forth philanthropists who founded well-endorsed universities. Major institutions came together to form the Association of American Universities, and other universities gained acceptance over time. The universities emphasized on their graduate and Ph.D. programs (Kezar & Bernstein, 2020). Lack of academic standards in higher education gave rise to private agencies that focused on providing a balance. The undergraduate experience was shaped through intercollegiate sports, drama, and literary societies, among other extracurricular activities.
During the World Wars, higher education provided programs like a unique training of military personnel supporting the war’s domestic efforts. There was a surge in college enrollment after the war and continued through the Great Depression and subsequent years. Universities responded by setting up multicampus systems that increased accessibility to higher education. The Education Amendment Act of 1972 called for the federal government to increase higher education choice, accessibility, and affordability through financial aids and student loans(Ibtissam & Warda, 2019). The growing investments and expanded access led to the managerial revolution of higher education. Administration and planning bodies were set within and outside the campus. The twenty-first century saw meritocracy and partial equity in higher education (Ibtissam & Warda, 2019). More females pursued graduate and professional studies and were the majority of Ph.D. recipients in literature, biology, and humanities. However, they were underrepresented in the engineering and physical science fields.
America’s higher education has seen a lot of changes over the years. It has evolved from a privilege reserved for white males to incorporation white females up to where everybody has access to education regardless of their race. Higher education has also expanded so much by constructing more colleges and universities up to the introduction of multicampus systems to make it accessible to millions of students. Government interventions through student loans and financial aids have made it possible for students from an underprivileged background to access higher education. Extra curriculum activities have allowed students to develop their skills and talents and go on to build their careers on that.