米国の高等教育は今、岐路に立たされています。技術革新や破壊的な市場原理が大学を襲い、その財政構造はますます脆弱になっています。補助金の削減で公立大学の授業料は引き上げられ、学生の借金は過去最高の1兆ドルという驚くべき高水準に達しています。大学教育の重要性はさまざまな調査研究が明らかにしているものの、コスト意識の高い学生とその家族、さらに広く一般社会がその価値を疑問視しています。学費を賄える人がますます少なくなる中、米国の大卒は平均で高卒の2倍の収入を得ています。エリート校は奨学金を削り、より持続可能なビジネスモデルを求め経営手法を変化させており、人種的・経済的階層化に起因する格差は拡大するばかりです。
本書はこうした懸念すべき問題の数々に焦点を当てながら、教育システムを悪化させた要因や今後の見通しについて解説します。教員の終身在職権、事務職の官僚主義、米・教育省の新しい大学評価システムに反映されるような説明責任に対する新たな要求、大学スポーツ強豪校における金の奪い合い、大学ランキングデータの改ざん、経営幹部に対する企業型の報酬などは大学に対する否定的な見方を生んできました。しかし、代替教育の台頭や、新しい教育やビジネスモデルへの対応などの解決策も生まれて始めています。また、政権や公的機関が、学費、多様性、学問的誠実性の問題にどのように取り組んでいるかも考察します。さらに大学が学生を惹きつけ、維持するために採用しているテクノロジー、学位に対する概念を変えつつあるコンピテンス基盤型教育の概要、そして近い将来高等教育の展望を変える可能性のある革新的な技術にも言及します。
    

• This quick-reading primer is both an appealing guide for the uninitiated and a dispassionate-yet-sophisticated complement to many other consumer and academic books on the topic
• The author has been reporting on higher education trends for 25 years and is nationally known for her expertise in the field
• Succinctly written and organized into digestible sections that can be read independently or as a cohesive whole
• Perfect for college-bound students and parents with questions about the affordability and value of a degree

 
American higher education is at a crossroads. Technological innovations and disruptive market forces are buffeting colleges and universities at the very time their financial structure grows increasingly fragile. Disinvestment by states has driven up tuition prices at public colleges, and student debt has reached a startling record-high of one trillion dollars. Cost-minded students and their families--and the public at large--are questioning the worth of a college education, even as study after study shows how important it is to economic and social mobility. And as elite institutions trim financial aid and change other business practices in search of more sustainable business models, racial and economic stratification in American higher education is only growing.
   
In American Higher Education in Crisis?: What Everyone Needs to Know, Goldie Blumenstyk, who has been reporting on higher education trends for 25 years, guides readers through the forces and trends that have brought the education system to this point, and highlights some of the ways they will reshape America's colleges in the years to come. Blumenstyk hones in on debates over the value of post-secondary education, problems of affordability, and concerns about the growing economic divide. Fewer and fewer people can afford the constantly increasing tuition price of college, Blumenstyk shows, and yet college graduates in the United States now earn on average twice as much as those with only a high-school education. She also discusses faculty tenure and growing administrative bureaucracies on campuses; considers new demands for accountability such as those reflected in the U.S. Department of Education's College Scorecard; and questions how the money chase in big-time college athletics, revelations about colleges falsifying rankings data, and corporate-style presidential salaries have soured public perception. 
   
Higher education is facing a serious set of challenges, but solutions have also begun to emerge. Blumenstyk highlights how institutions are responding to the rise of alternative-educational opportunities and the new academic and business models that are appearing, and considers how the Obama administration and public organizations are working to address questions of affordability, diversity, and academic integrity. She addresses some of the advances in technology colleges are employing to attract and retain students; outlines emerging competency-based programs that are reshaping conceptions of a college degree, and offers readers a look at promising innovations that could alter the higher education landscape in the near future. 
  
An extremely timely and focused look at this embattled and evolving arena, this primer emphasizes how open-ended the conversation about higher education's future remains, and illuminates how big the stakes are for students, colleges, and the nation.