Finance and Function: Voluntary Support and Diversity in American Private Higher Education

A revolution has taken place in the past generation in American assumptions about higher education: It has virtually become a universally accepted responsibility of government to make it possible for all qualified students to attend college. This shift in opinion has been translated quite tangibly into the bricks and mortar of greatly expanded state and municipal university systems, as well as an extensive network of local community colleges. As a result, the 50% of student enrollments that the public sector claimed in 1950 has grown to nearly 78% in 1985. By the somewhat artificial measure of “market share,” the private sector would seem to have lost more than half of its clientele. In the more meaningful measure of actual students, however, private colleges and universities have more than doubled their enrollments during this period. In fact, during the latter part of the 1970s the private sector added more students than did its much larger public counterpart. The private sector clearly still plays a vital role in our system of higher education. But just what might that be? This simple question admits of no simple answer. More than 1500 private colleges and universities cater to students of widely differing ages, aspirations, and abilities. They offer some 300 bachelor’s degrees, not to mention additional programs on the graduate-professional level. From another angle, one might note that public higher education is a responsibility of the states. Thus, there are actually fifty public sectors in this country, each of which (save that of Wyoming) is complemented by an array of private institutions. Not all of these state private sectors are terribly different from those of neighboring states; but regional contrasts are nevertheless stark between, for example, states where private higher education has evolved alongside large and prestigious state universities and those eastern states where private schools have long been predominant. The functions of private higher education in the United States are obviously complex.