Association, Service, Market: Higher Education in American Political Development

Abstract

US higher education has enjoyed growing attention from social scientists and historians. We integrate recent scholarship by framing a political and historical sociology of the sector and we show how higher education has been central to projects of nation building and social provision throughout the course of American political development. US higher education has three institutional configurations: an associational one, defined by voluntary intramural organizations; a national service one, defined by massive government patronage; and a market one, defined by competition for students, patrons, and prestige. Continuity and change over time may be understood with the theoretical tools of historical sociology: path dependence, coalescence, and robust action. Our review substantiates assertions of deep turbulence in US higher education at present and calls for a closer integration of scholarship on state building and social stratification to inform the future.6.1

The social dimension of participation and completion in MOOCs

“…Subsequent works further revealed how socio-economic background of the family is one of the strongest predictors of college completion (though not the only one) (Roksa et al, 2007;Rosenbaum et al, 2009). Building on this literature scholars developed the metaphor of the sieve: college in the USA stand in between family background and occupational achievement as a mechanism to allocate occupational opportunities and life chances (Stevens et al, 2008;Stevens & Gebre-Medhin, 2016). As allocation of positions is based on educational credentials, the education system has worked more as sieve rather than a ladder in social mobility, by regulating access to prestigious positions through educational credentials (Stevens et al, 2008).…”

The Organizational Ecology of College Affordability: Research Activity, State Grant Aid Policies, and Student Debt at U.S. Public Universities

“…We take an institutional and ecological approach (Armstrong and Hamilton 2013;Shavit, Arum, and Gamoran 2007;Stevens, Armstrong, and Arum 2008;Stevens and Gebre-Medhin 2016;Stevens and Kirst 2015) to envision how research activities and state need-based grant aid policies might intersect in college cost structures. In considering both institutional diversity and widespread resource challenges for public universities, we argue that rising burdens from student debt are likely present across most public universities but especially acute at lower tier research public universities.…”

“…We argue that variations in the level of research conducted at public universities may shape their ability to mitigate the impacts of state funding cuts on low-income students. The United States has a remarkably heterogeneous ecology of public universities (Armstrong and Hamilton 2013;Shavit et al 2007;Stevens et al 2008;Stevens and Gebre-Medhin 2016;Stevens and Kirst 2015). Few scholars, however, have examined how organizational stratification related to research intensiveness might spill over into undergraduate education with potential consequences for educational mobility.…”

“…While sociologists have linked the organizational features of for-profit and private nonprofit colleges to affordability and student debt (Addo, Houle, and Simon 2016;Cottom 2017;Houle 2013), few studies have considered potential organizational heterogeneity in patterns of college costs and loan borrowing at public universities (Nations 2018;Stevens and Gebre-Medhin 2016). This article evaluates levels of student debt and the challenges repaying those debts among lowincome students at public universities with varying levels of research.…”

Research on Innovative Mode of Ideological and Political Education in Colleges and Universities under Internet Environment

“…Since the 1990s, China's information technology has gradually developed, especially in recent years. With the continuous development of wireless communication and mobile interconnection technology, China has gradually entered the "Internet +" era [1,2]. For the ideological and political education in colleges and universities, we must face the challenge brought by Internet +, seize the opportunity of development, and realize the reform of ideological and political education mode [3].…”