The history of higher education in the United States begins in 1636 and continues to the present time. American higher education is known throughout the world for its dramatic expansion. It was also heavily influenced by British models in the colonial era, and German models in the 19th century. The American model includes private schools, mostly founded by religious denominations, as well as universities run by state governments, and a few military academies that are run by the national government.
Colonial era
Religious denominations established most early colleges in order to train ministers. They were modeled after Oxford and Cambridge universities in England, as well as Scottish universities. Harvard College was founded by the Massachusetts Bay colonial legislature in 1636, and was named after an early benefactor. Most of the funding came from the colony, but the colleges began to collect endowments early on. Harvard first focused on training young men for the ministry, and won general support from the Puritan government, some of whose leaders had attended either Oxford or Cambridge.See Roger L. Geiger, The History of American Higher Education (2014) pp 1-8 online The College of William & Mary was founded by the Virginia government in 1693, with of land for an endowment, and a penny tax on every pound of tobacco, together with an annual appropriation. James Blair, the leading Church of England minister in the colony, was president for 50 years, and the college won the broad support of the Virginia gentry. It trained many of the lawyers, politicians, and leading planters at the time.See Geiger, The History of American Higher Education (2014) pp 11-15 online Yale College was founded in 1701, and in 1716 was relocated to New Haven, Connecticut. The conservative Puritan ministers of Connecticut had grown dissatisfied with the more liberal theology of Harvard and wanted their own school to train orthodox ministers.See Geiger, The History of American Higher Education (2014) pp 8-11 online
New Light Presbyterians in 1747 set up the College of New Jersey, in the town of Princeton; it was later renamed Princeton University in 1896. In New York City, the Church of England set up King's College by royal charter in 1746, with its president Doctor Samuel Johnson the only teacher. Following the American Revolutionary War, the Tory administration of the college was overthrown and it was renamed Columbia College in 1784, then later renamed Columbia University in 1896. Rhode Island College was founded by Baptists in 1764, and in 1804 it was renamed Brown University in honor of a benefactor. Brown was especially liberal in welcoming young men from other denominations. The Academy of Pennsylvania, a secondary school, was founded in 1749 by Benjamin Franklin and other civic-minded leaders in Philadelphia. In 1755, it received its charter, was renamed College of Philadelphia and was converted into an institution of higher education. Unlike the other universities, it was not oriented towards the training of ministers. It was renamed the University of Pennsylvania in 1791. The Dutch Reformed Church in 1766 set up Queen's College in New Jersey, which later became Rutgers University. Dartmouth College, chartered in 1769, moved to its present site in Hanover, New Hampshire, in 1770.John R. Thelin, A History of American Higher Education (2004) pp 1-40Lawrence A. Cremin, American Education: The Colonial Experience, 1607–1783 1970, passim
Seeking a national university Although European nations did not have a national university (England at the time enforced the duopoly of Oxford and Cambridge), many political and intellectual leaders called for one to unify the new nation intellectually, promote republicanism, enhance the status of learning, and keep up with European standards of scholarship. George Washington as president was the most prominent advocate along with Benjamin Rush, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Charles Pinckney, James Wilson, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Alexander Hamilton, Joel Barlow, and James Monroe. Strong opposition came from the economy- and provincial-minded men who distrusted imposed uniformity in ideas. Anti-intellectualism, states-rights-ism, and indifference defeated the dream. However repeated efforts produced some smaller-scale operations: Columbian College in 1919 (now George Washington University) as well as national scientific centers including a National Observatory, the Smithsonian Institution, and in 1863, the National Academy of Sciences.Albert Castel, . "The Founding Fathers and the Vision of a National University." History of Education Quarterly 4.4 (1964): 280-302.George Thomas, The Founders and the Idea of a National University: Constituting the American Mind (2014).
Nineteenth century Most Protestant, as well as Catholic, denominations opened small colleges in the nineteenth century, mostly after 1850.David B. Potts, "American colleges in the nineteenth century: From localism to denominationalism." History of Education Quarterly (1971): 363-380 in JSTOR.David B. Potts, Baptist colleges in the development of American society, 1812-1861 (1988). Nearly all taught in the English language, although there were a few German language seminaries and colleges.Louis A. Haselmayer, "German Methodist colleges in the West." Methodist History (1964) 2#4 pp 35-43. online
Frontier While colleges were springing up across the Northeast, there was little competition on the western frontier for Transylvania University, founded in Lexington, Kentucky in 1780.John Wright, Transylvania: Tutor to the West (1976) In addition to its undergraduate program, it boasted law and medical programs. It attracted politically ambitious young men from across the Southwest including 50 who became United States senators, 101 congressmen, 36 governors and 34 ambassadors, as well as Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy.John R. Thelin, A History of American Higher Education (2004) pp 46-47 Many of the colleges started at this time were funded by churches and denominations, instructing pastors and teachers. It wasn't until the Morrill Land-Grant Acts of 1862 and 1890 that public colleges and universities were started in the Midwest, including many of the first public HBCU'sThelin, J. R. (2014). Essential documents in the history of American higher education. JHU Press. p. 76, 93
Curriculum All the schools were small, with a limited undergraduate curriculum based on the liberal arts. Students were drilled in Greek, Latin, geometry, ancient history, logic, ethics and rhetoric, with few discussions and no lab sessions. Originality and creativity were not prized, but exact repetition was rewarded. The college president typically enforced strict discipline, and the upperclassman enjoyed hazing the freshman. Many students were younger than 17, and most of the colleges concurrently operated a preparatory school. There were no organized sports or Greek-letter fraternities, but literary societies were active. Tuition was very low and scholarships were few. Many of the students were sons of clergymen; most planned professional careers as ministers, lawyers or teachers.Frederick Rudolph, The American College and University: A History (1962) pp 3-22
By the 1820s there was a growing demand to replace Greek and Latin with modern languages, as had been proposed by Jeffersonians at the University of Virginia and the newly opened University of the City of New York. The Yale Report of 1828 was a defense of the Latin and Greek curriculum. It called to maintain traditions, especially against the forceful reputation of the German research universities that were starting to attract young American postgraduate scholars. Most critics viewed it as a reactionary move, although Pak Depicted in terms of attracting students from the growing number of private academies that continued to stress the classic languages. The reformers failed, and the classical languages continued as the centerpiece of the rigid traditional curriculum until after the Civil War.Michael S. Pak, "The Yale Report of 1828: A New Reading and New Implications," History of Education Quarterly (2008) 48#1 pp 30-57 in JSTORRudolph, The American College and University: A History (1962) pp 124-135 For example, at East Alabama Male College, a small Methodist school was founded in 1856 with a curriculum centered on Latin, Greek, and moral science; it resembled most other antebellum Southern colleges. It closed during the Civil War and reopened as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama, becoming the state's land-grant institution. While retaining some of the antebellum classical curriculum to accommodate the returning faculty, it added new courses in agricultural and industrial arts, as well as applied sciences. It became Alabama Polytechnic Institute in 1899, and is now known as Auburn University.Dwayne Cox, "Academic Purpose and Command at Auburn, 1856-1902," Alabama Review (2008) 51#2 pp 83-104 online
Impact of 19th-century colleges
The liberal arts colleges flourished and only a few added graduate programs. Summarizing the research of Burke and Hall, Katz concludes that in the 19th century:Michael Katz, "The Role of American Colleges in the Nineteenth Century", History of Education Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Summer, 1983), pp. 215-223 in JSTOR, summarizing Colin B. Burke, American Collegiate Populations: A Test of the Traditional View (New York University Press, 1982) and Peter Dobkin Hall, The Organization of American Culture: Private Institutions, Elites, and the Origins of American Nationality (New York University Press, 1982) The nation's many small colleges helped young men make the transition from rural farms to complex urban occupations. These colleges especially promoted upward mobility by preparing ministers, and thereby provided towns across the country with a core of community leaders. The more elite colleges became increasingly exclusive and contributed relatively little to upward social mobility. By concentrating on the offspring of wealthy families, ministers and a few others, the elite Eastern colleges, especially Harvard, played an important role in the formation of a Northeastern elite with great power.
Emergence of the modern university
Many American scholars and scientists studied at German universities before 1914. They returned with PhDs and built research-oriented universities based on the German model, such as Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Chicago and Stanford, and upgraded established schools like Harvard, Columbia and Wisconsin.Lawrence R. Veysey, The Emergence of the American University (1965) pp. 127–133.
Historian Laurence Veysey in his book The Emergence of the American University (1965) explained how higher education was revolutionized after 1865 by the creation of the modern university. Stressing Johns Hopkins, Cornell, Clark, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Michigan, Chicago, Stanford and Berkeley, Veysey showed how the newly created and newly reformed schools were influenced by German approaches that taught new findings based on experimental and empirical research techniques. The new model rejected the British model that reiterated over and over the Latin and Greek classics. The new university introduced new teaching methods such as lectures and seminars. It made graduate school training, culminating in the PhD, the mark of the true scholar. The doctoral dissertation required students to create new knowledge, preferably through experimental methods or research in original sources. The new land grant state universities generally followed the new model and deemphasized classical Latin and Greek while adding science, technology, industrial engineering and agricultural science.Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, "In the Wake of Laurence Veysey: Re-Examining the Liberal Arts College," History of Education Quarterly 45#3 (2005), pp. 420-426. Also see Veysey, The Emergence pp 439-444.
Law and medical schools