The Future of Higher Education

Higher education is more important than ever, for individual success and for national economic growth. And yet higher education in the United States is in crisis: public funding has been in free fall; tuition has skyrocketed making colleges and universities less accessible; basic structures such as tenure are under assault. The Future of Higher Education analyzes the crisis in higher education, describing how a dominant neo-liberal political ideology has significantly changed the U.S. system of higher education. The book examines the contemporary landscape of higher education institutions and asks and answers these questions: Who is able to attend college? Who pays for our system of higher education? Who works at and who governs colleges and universities? The book concludes with a plan for radically revitalizing higher education in the United States.

The goal of this new, unique Series is to offer readable, teachable "thinking frames" on today’s social problems and social issues by leading scholars, all in short 60 page or shorter formats, and available for view on http://routledge.customgateway.com/routledge-social-issues.html

For instructors teaching a wide range of courses in the social sciences, the RoutledgeSocial Issues Collection now offers the best of both worlds: originally written short texts that provide "overviews" to important social issues as well as teachable excerpts from larger works previously published by Routledge and other presses.

Dan Clawson is Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and the author or editor (sometimes with others) of seven books and numerous articles, including Public Sociology andThe Next Upsurge: Labor and the New Social Movements. He is a former president of the UMass faculty union and serves on the board of the statewide Massachusetts Teachers Association.

Max Page is Professor of Architecture and History at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is the author ofThe Creative Destruction of Manhattan and The City’s End, is a former president of the Massachusetts Society of Professors, the faculty and librarian union at UMass Amherst, and serves on the Executive Committee of the 110,000-member Massachusetts Teachers Association.