Precipice or Crossroads?

President Lincoln signed the Morrill Land-grant Act in 1862, launching a nationwide project in public higher education that would build democracy, prosperity, and competitiveness to levels undreamed of 150 years ago. As student costs skyrocket, driven by steep drops in public funding, the viability of that project, like the nation itself, is under threat. In Precipice or Crossroads? top experts in higher education address a broad range of issues central to the question of whether the quality of these institutions—and of American life and democracy—can be sustained.

A Note on References

Foreword
Peter McPherson

Acknowledgments

Introduction
Daniel Mark Fogel

Democracy, the West, and Land-Grant Colleges
Coy F. Cross II

The 1890 Institutions in African American and American Life
Carolyn R. Mahoney

The Modern Public University: Its Land-Grant Heritage, Its Land-Grant Horizon
E. Gordon Gee

Commitments: Enhancing the Public Purposes and Outcomes of Public Higher Education
Mark G. Yudof and Caitlin Callaghan

Challenges to Viability and Sustainability: Public Funding, Tuition, College Costs, and Affordability
David E. Shulenburger

University-Based R&D and Economic Development: The Morrill Act and the Emergence of the American Research University
Michael M. Crow and William B. Dabars

From a Land-Grant to a World-Grant Ideal: Extending Public Higher Education Core Values to a Global Frame
John Hudzik and Lou Anna K. Simon

Statewide University Systems: Taking the Land-Grant Concept to Scale in the Twenty-First Century
Nancy L. Zimpher and Jessica Fisher Neidl

Creating the Future: The Promise of Public Research Universities for America
James J. Duderstadt

Challenges to Equilibrium: The Place of the Arts and Humanities in Public Research Universities
Daniel Mark Fogel

References
Notes on Contributors
Index