Baum Sandy, Kurose Charles, McPherson Michael
Future Child. 2013 Spring;23(1):17-39. doi: 10.1353/foc.2013.0008.
This overview of postsecondary education in the United States reviews the dramatic changes over the past fifty years in the students who go to college, the institutions that produce higher education, and the ways it is financed. The article, by Sandy Baum, Charles Kurose, and Michael McPherson, creates the context for the articles that follow on timely issues facing the higher education community and policy makers. The authors begin by observing that even the meaning of college has changed. The term that once referred primarily to a four-year period of academic study now applies to virtually any postsecondary study--academic or occupational, public or private, two-year or four-year-- that can result in a certificate or degree. They survey the factors underlying the expansion of postsecondary school enrollments; the substantial increases in female, minority, disadvantaged, and older students; the development of public community colleges; and the rise of for-profit colleges. They discuss the changing ways in which federal and state governments help students and schools defray the costs of higher education as well as more recent budget tensions that are now reducing state support to public colleges. And they review the forces that have contributed to the costs of producing higher education and thus rising tuitions. The authors also cite evidence on broad measures of college persistence and outcomes, including low completion rates at community and for-profit colleges, the increasing need for remedial education for poorly prepared high school students, and a growing gap between the earnings of those with a bachelor's degree and those with less education. They disagree with critics who say that investments in higher education, particularly for students at the margin, no longer pay off. A sustained investment in effective education at all levels is vital to the nation's future, they argue. But they caution that the American public no longer seems willing to pay more for more students to get more education. They therefore urge the higher education community to make every effort to find innovations, including creative uses of information technology, that can hold down costs while producing quality education.
这篇关于美国高等教育的综述回顾了过去五十年来，上大学的学生、提供高等教育的机构以及高等教育资金筹集方式所发生的巨大变化。由桑迪·鲍姆、查尔斯·库罗斯和迈克尔·麦克弗森撰写的这篇文章，为后续探讨高等教育界和政策制定者所面临的热点问题的文章搭建了背景框架。作者开篇指出，就连大学的含义都已发生改变。这个曾经主要指四年学术学习期的术语，如今几乎适用于任何能带来证书或学位的高等教育学习——学术性或职业性的、公立或私立的、两年制或四年制的。他们审视了高等学校入学人数扩张背后的因素；女性、少数族裔、弱势群体及大龄学生数量的大幅增加；公立社区学院的发展；以及营利性学院的兴起。他们讨论了联邦和州政府帮助学生及学校支付高等教育费用的方式变化，以及近期导致州政府对公立大学资助减少的预算紧张状况。并且他们回顾了促使高等教育成本上升从而导致学费上涨的各种因素。作者还引用了关于大学就读持续性和学业成果的广泛衡量指标的证据，包括社区学院和营利性学院的低毕业率、对准备不足的高中生补习教育需求的增加，以及拥有学士学位者与受教育程度较低者收入差距的不断扩大。他们不同意批评者所说的对高等教育的投资，尤其是对边缘学生的投资不再有回报的观点。他们认为，对各级有效教育进行持续投资对国家未来至关重要。但他们警告说，美国公众似乎不再愿意为更多学生接受更多教育支付更多费用。因此，他们敦促高等教育界尽一切努力寻找创新方法，包括创造性地利用信息技术，以便在提供优质教育的同时控制成本。
