degree-granting institutions of higher education. Originally, a college was a group of students who gathered to share academic and residential facilities. Each college was a component part of a corporate body called a university, the word being an abbreviation of the Latin universitas magistrorum et scholarium (“guild [or union] of masters and students”), organized for mutual advantage and legal protection. Today, especially in the U.S., a college may be affiliated with a university (for example, Barnard College of Columbia University) or independent (for example, Smith College). See EDUCATION, HIGHER,.

American undergraduates traditionally have been required to take general survey courses before they specialize in major areas of concentration; the undergraduate program generally is four years, and each year is split into two or three sessions. After receiving a bachelor of arts (B.A.) or a bachelor of science (B.S.) degree, those who want additional education enroll in programs leading to a master of arts (M.A.) or a doctor of philosophy (Ph.D.) degree or study at a medical, law, or other professional or technical graduate school at the same or another institution. In contrast, European students begin their higher education with specialized studies because their general education is completed in secondary school (see EDUCATION, SECONDARY,). In general, European universities have no prescribed courses, attendance requirements, or course grades. Students may attend lectures, but do their work directly with tutors who prepare them for examinations. Programs may be completed in two to six years.

DEVELOPMENT OF COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES

Although modern colleges and universities evolved from Western European institutions of the Middle Ages, significant types of higher learning existed in ancient times, in the Middle and Far East as well as in Europe. Some of these Eastern institutions still flourish.

Historical Antecedents.

In Greece, the Academy of Plato and the Lyceum of Aristotle were advanced schools of philosophy (see ACADEMY,). During the Hellenistic period, which began in the 4th century bc, Athens attracted many Roman students, later including the statesmen and writers Julius Caesar, Cicero, Augustus, and Horace. Also important during this period was the Egyptian city of Alexandria, with its great library (see ALEXANDRIA, LIBRARY OF,) and museum, which attracted scholars from the Middle East. The Jewish academies in Palestine and Babylonia, which produced the Talmud, promoted religious and secular intellectual pursuits from about ad 70 through the 13th century. The University of Nalanda, in northern India, where native and Chinese students studied Buddhism, functioned until the 13th century. Institutions of higher education flourished in China itself from the 7th century and in Korea from the 14th century. The al-Azhar University in Cairo, now more than 1000 years old, is the central authority for Islam. Another Islamic institution of equal antiquity is al Qarawiyin University in Fez, Morocco.

Medieval Universities.

Western European universities developed as students migrated to various places where noted teachers lectured on subjects of particular interest to them. Language was no barrier because lectures and disputation were conducted in the universal tongue, Latin. By the 12th century Paris was established as the center for theology and philosophy, and the University of Paris became the model for later universities in northern Europe. Bologna, Italy, was the center for the study of law, and the University of Bologna set the pattern for Italian and Spanish universities. Beginning in the 13th century, universities were established in France, England, Germany, Bohemia, and Poland. Students migrating from the same country banded together into so-called nations for mutual aid and protection. From these communities developed the concept of the college (Lat. collegium, “society”). Medieval universities had the right to suspend studies when conditions in their towns and cities were unfavorable and to confer degrees that included the privilege of teaching in any Christian country.

From the Renaissance to the 18th Century.

Italian universities such as Ferrara helped to transmit Renaissance humanistic ideas to northern European institutions. Bologna was the great 17th-century center for medicine and biology. The University of Leiden in Holland, established in 1575, attracted students from all over the Continent to investigate the new sciences; later, as an important 18th-century center for legal studies, Leiden attracted many students from Scotland, among them, for example, the biographer and lawyer James Boswell. The University of Salamanca, in Spain, founded about 1230, set the pattern for the establishment of institutions in Central and South America in the 16th and 17th centuries.

The University of Wittenberg was the scene of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation (1517), started by Martin Luther, a professor there. His disciples went on to teach in all parts of Germany, Scandinavia, and eastern Europe. The Calvinist Reformation in Switzerland involved the University of Geneva, whose faculty and students helped to spread the doctrines of the theologian John Calvin throughout Europe and North America.

New England Calvinists founded Harvard College (later Harvard University), the oldest of American universities. The Calvinist tradition also led to the establishment of Yale College (later Yale University) and the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). Other colonial establishments included King’s College (now Columbia University), Queen’s College (now Rutgers, the State University), and Dartmouth College. During the colonial period, however, many well-to-do American students chose to study abroad, primarily at universities in Scotland, Holland, France, and Italy.

The first institution of higher secular education in Russia was the University of Moscow, founded in 1755 by the scientist Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov; it developed, along with other Russian secular universities, under German and other foreign influences. The universities of Vilnius, Lithuania, and Tartu (Dorpat), Estonia, founded in 1579 and 1632 respectively, were primarily religious in orientation.

The 19th and 20th Centuries Outside the U.S.

The post-Industrial Revolution era, with the growth of the middle class, provided much of the impetus for expanding European higher education. During the 19th century, German universities became influential sources of scholarly research and examples of academic freedom. The University of Berlin was noted for philosophy; Göttingen for literature and mathematics; Heidelberg for mathematics and the classics; Leipzig for psychology; and Jena for pedagogy. Many students from foreign countries, including the U.S., obtained their doctor of philosophy degrees from German universities.

British institutions founded during this period include the universities of London and Durham (the first new English universities established after the Middle Ages), as well as the universities of Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, and Wales. Unlike the universities of Oxford and Cambridge (founded in the 12th and 13th centuries, respectively), which represented the Establishment, social prestige, and relatively conservative views, these and other institutions familiarly referred to as “red brick universities” attracted students and faculty with advanced social and political ideas, as typified later by the post-World War II “angry young men” writers who studied or taught in these schools.

In Canada in the 19th century McGill University and the universities of Toronto and Montréal were founded.

Among new 19th-century universities on the Continent were those in Berlin; Saint Petersburg; Athens; Bucharest (Romania); and Sofia (Bulgaria). In India, the universities of Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras, all established in 1857, were formed as examining bodies along the lines of the University of London. Today the University of Melbourne (1853) has the largest enrollment of Australia’s institutions of higher education—which include Sydney, Adelaide, and Queensland.

The growth of universities in China was retarded by civil unrest during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The University of Beijing was founded in 1896; most of the other colleges and technical institutes date from the 1920s or after World War II. Japanese universities include Tokyo (1877) and Kyoto (1897).

Throughout the 19th century and up to the present, college and university students were generally in the vanguard of radical and revolutionary thought. Russian universities grew in number and influence in the 19th century, and until the Revolution of 1917 they offered studies in the classics, science, Russian literature, and history. They also were centers of radical and revolutionary political doctrines and activities. The government periodically withdrew academic privileges and imprisoned faculty members and students, but this control could not stem the tide of revolutionary thought. Restrictive and repressive measures by administration and government authorities, as in czarist Russia, and in Germany during the 1920s and ’30s, often led to student protests and riots and to school closings. Similarly, reactions to political events as well as to underlying issues of academic freedom caused widespread student demonstrations in the U.S. and France during the late 1960s.

In the post-World War II era, particularly during the 1950s and ’60s, many universities were established in England and Germany, as well as in the developing nations of Asia and Africa.

Colleges and Universities in the U.S. Today

As American colleges became universities during the 19th century, law, medicine, and other professional studies were added to their curricula or taught at special schools. The Morrill Act, passed by Congress in 1862, supported education in agriculture and engineering and helped the growth of state universities in the Middle and Far West (see LAND-GRANT COLLEGES,). The first college for women, Mount Holyoke, in South Hadley, Mass., was founded in 1837; others soon followed, including Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Hunter, Radcliffe, Smith, Vassar, and Wellesley.

Although church-affiliated institutions continued to be created, many colleges and universities with religious ties became secularized, such as Harvard and Yale; and state universities and other nonsecular institutions were increasingly established.

Two-Year Colleges.

Starting in the early 20th century, junior colleges, offering two years of academic work—often career oriented—after secondary school, were founded throughout the country. Two-year community colleges, a post-World War II development, serve students who may not wish to pursue, or who may not be ready to undertake, a 4-year education. The degree of associate in arts (A.A.) or associate in science (A.S.) is granted to junior and community college graduates; some may then study further at 4-year colleges or universities. Like many of these, community colleges often provide extension courses to help students fulfill previously begun degree requirements and adult education courses with or without academic credit.

Organization and Administration.

Colleges and universities in the U.S. are generally headed by a president and a provost who may serve as chief academic officer. Each school or college within a university is under the direction of a dean. A chairperson or head supervises individual departments of instruction. Faculty members are ranked, in descending order, as professor, associate professor, assistant professor, and instructor. In many institutions, some instructors are graduate students who conduct introductory undergraduate courses or direct small groups that meet to discuss material covered by senior faculty in larger formal lectures. Progression through the faculty ranks comes from a combination of years spent teaching and academic performance (often as evidenced by publication of scholarly books and papers). Faculty members can be dismissed unless and until they have been granted tenure, a term denoting academic job security. Like advancement, tenure is earned by time spent teaching and evidence of scholarship.

A board of trustees administers a college or university. Generally composed of people drawn from occupations other than education, such a board approves major administrative appointments and decisions, but it does not ordinarily interfere in purely academic affairs. (Alleged infractions of this policy may be referred to the American Association of University Professors, an organization concerned with protecting its members’ academic freedom.)

Instruction.

Instruction is carried on variously in classrooms or lecture halls, laboratories, libraries, and in the field. Increasing use is being made of computers and other technology. The national television networks have organized credit and noncredit courses conducted by authorities in science, mathematics, and other fields who lecture to large numbers of matriculated students and the wider public.

In recent years a marked trend has emerged toward interdepartmental or interdisciplinary instruction. Interdepartmental or interdisciplinary programs combine two or more related subjects of study into areas or cultural fields; American studies, black studies, or women’s studies are examples of such programs.

Degrees.

Students who pass the regular 4-year program of courses receive a bachelor’s degree in arts, science, commerce, engineering, education, or any of several other fields. Bachelor’s degrees in law and theology are granted to those possessing a bachelor’s degree from a 4-year college. Graduates may continue their course of study for at least one more year for a master’s degree. A master’s thesis or project may be required for a degree.

The university offers doctor’s degrees and special certificates. Students may continue working for at least two years beyond the master’s level toward the degree of doctor of philosophy, doctor of science, or other type of doctorate. In graduate school seminars give advanced students opportunities to do research work and then submit their findings for evaluation and criticism. The doctor’s degree is conferred on the basis of courses, seminars, a dissertation, and written and oral examinations. The seminar was introduced in 1876 at Johns Hopkins University on the model of the German university seminars.

Student Life.

In 1990 more than 13.7 million college and university students in the U.S. either resided in on-campus dormitories, fraternity or sorority houses, off-campus apartments, or commute from their homes. Colleges and universities now routinely supply many types of counseling and advisory services dealing with health and academic problems, adjustment to campus life, and preparation for or choice of vocation. Recreational activities, apart from student organizations, special-interest clubs, and social groups, often include well-organized intramural and varsity sports; on the varsity level many institutions belong to athletic conferences such as the eastern Ivy League, the midwestern Big Ten, and the far western Pacific Eight.

With tuition rates increasing at all institutions throughout the U.S., more and more students today are dependent on financial aid in the form of tuition loans and grants, bursaries (contributions toward expenses in exchange for work done for the school), scholarships, and fellowships. In addition, most students work part time during the academic year or throughout vacation periods to supplement other financial sources.

Current Issues and Problems.

Many critics, both in and out of higher education, have registered concerns over a variety of issues: the courses a student should be required to take, both in preparing for a career and in becoming an educated person; the best ways to teach the ever-expanding body of new knowledge so as to remain competitive with other nations whose students are excelling in areas such as science and mathematics; the prevalence of superficial courses leading to degrees; and what some feel to be an overemphasis on competitive sports (including the practice of awarding substantial scholarships and other recruiting inducements to promising athletes).

Objections also have been made to the open enrollment policy at some city and state universities, which allows any secondary school graduate to be admitted without regard to academic record. On the other hand, there is much concern as to how to increase the number of, and to retain, qualified minority students within an educational system widely perceived to contain many kinds of inequities and obstacles. To ensure these numbers, many institutions of higher education are working with primary and secondary schools to improve the quality of preparation of students at every level, seeking funding for increased scholarship opportunities for ethnic minorities, and working with minority students to make the college and university atmosphere more hospitable to them.

In addition to the issues above, major problems facing today’s colleges and universities include coping with rising operational expenses and with rising tuition rates in order to keep college study possible for those of limited or even average means; obtaining private financial support at a time when government support is diminishing; finding new talent to replace an aging professoriat; and maintaining and improving physical plants, especially scientific laboratories. In a different area, many women’s and men’s colleges have become coeducational or have merged their facilities since World War II, a trend that continues but is questioned by those concerned about the potential loss of academic identity and autonomy in the case of women’s colleges.        S.D.P., STEVEN D. PRICE, LL.B.

For further information, see separate articles on most of the colleges and universities mentioned.

For further information on this topic, see the Bibliography, sections 309. Education, history of, 322. Higher education–323. College choice.