Description
This is the first comprehensive history of California’s pioneering effort to create an expansive and high-quality system of public higher education. Throughout this century, states established public colleges and universities at a dizzying pace, funding enrollment expansion to fit their perceived economic and social needs, and launching a truly dramatic experiment in social engineering. The result was a transformation of the scope and purpose of American higher education, and leading the way was California, with its internationally renowned network of public colleges and universities. Most states struggled to coordinate their respective public institutions. Issues of governance, autonomy, funding, and accountability gained greater importance in local and statewide politics as the importance of higher education in American society increased, the number of public institutions grew, and the cost to taxpayers escalated.
