Since the early 1980s, the rapidly increasing cost of college,
together with what many see as inadequate attention to teaching,
has elicited a barrage of protest. Buying the Best looks at the
realities behind these criticisms--at the economic factors that are
in fact driving the institutions that have been described as
machines without brakes. In designing his study, Charles Clotfelter
examines the escalation in spending in the arts and sciences at
four elite institutions: Harvard, Duke, Chicago, and Carleton. He
argues that the rise in costs has less to do with increasing
faculty salaries or lowered productivity than with a broad-based
effort to improve quality, provide new services to students, pay
for large investments in new facilities and equipment (including
computers), and ensure access for low-income students through
increasingly expensive financial aid. In Clotfelter's view,
spiraling costs arise from the institutions' lofty ambitions and
are made possible by steadily intensifying demand for places in the
country's elite colleges and universities. Only if this demand
slackens will universities be pressured to make cuts or pursue
efficiencies. Buying the Best is the first study to make use of the
internal historical records of specific institutions, as opposed to
the frequently unreliable aggregate records made available by the
federal government for the use of survey researchers. As such, it
has the virtue of allowing Clotfelter to draw much more realistic
comparative conclusions than have hitherto been reported. While
acknowledging the obvious drawbacks of a small sample, Clotfelter
notes that the institutions studied are significant for the
disproportionate influence they, and comparable elite institutions,
exercise upon research and upon the training of future leaders. The
book contains a foreword by William G. Bowen, President of the
Mellon Foundation, and Harold T. Shapiro, President of Princeton
University. "Concern about ever-rising costs runs like a thread
through the myriad critiques of higher education that have been
published in recent years...One of the great contributions of
Clotfelter's work is to dismiss easy explanations for the problems
that worry us. With some of the scales removed from their eyes,
both those with responsibility for the future of higher education
and observers who continue to expect an ever-wider scope of effort
from particular colleges and universities, can now adjust their
focus. Armed with this original and extremely useful analysis, we
can confront more directly (and with less romanticism) the real
choices before us as we seek to employ limited resources most
effectively in the service of teaching and research."-William G.
Bowen, President, Mellon Foundation, Harold T. Shapiro, President,
Princeton University, from the foreword Originally published in
1996. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand
technology to again make available previously out-of-print books
from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press.
These editions preserve the original texts of these important books
while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions.
The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase
access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of
books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in
1905.
General
Imprint: |
Princeton University Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Series: |
Princeton Legacy Library |
Release date: |
April 2016 |
First published: |
1996 |
Authors: |
Charles T. Clotfelter
|
Dimensions: |
229 x 152 x 26mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Hardcover - Trade binding
|
Pages: |
334 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-691-63108-0 |
Categories: |
Books >
Social sciences >
Education >
Higher & further education >
General
|
LSN: |
0-691-63108-5 |
Barcode: |
9780691631080 |
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