The Uncertain Future of American Public Universities

The second part of the question — Can we keep from going over the precipice? Can difficulty and challenge become opportunities for the change in course symbolized by the crossroads in the title of this book? — is an open one, no doubt as open as a variety of questions that might be posed about the fate of the nation itself. Despite the forces at work at the moment that militate against government funding of any number of public goods, from high-speed rail and broadband access to health care and education, it is my belief that our great public universities — and, in turn, the nation — will decline if the political currents are not reversed, and specifically if the tide does not turn on state and federal support for public research universities. It is my hope that this volume will help to inform and fortify the efforts and voices of those who campaign for such a turn. For while it is incumbent on the leaders, the faculty, and the staff of public universities to manage the resources entrusted to them as effectively as possible, and while private giving will always play an important role in supporting the pursuit of academic excellence, only sustained, robust, and predictable funding from the states and the federal government can ensure that the nation will continue to derive at globally competitive levels the numerous benefits that public higher education provides.

A few years ago, the New York Times reported on China’s effort “to transform its top universities into the world’s best within a decade . . . spending billions of dollars to woo big-name scholars . . . and to build first-class research laboratories,” an essential element of China’s project to “raise its profile as a great power.” The Times quoted Wu Bangguo, Chairman and Party Secretary of the National People’s Congress in the People’s Republic of China and the nation’s second-highest-ranking leader, as saying, “First-class universities increasingly reflect a nation’s overall power,” to which I would add that they not only reflect but to a significant degree build that power (and if power per se is not your thing, substitute prosperity, health, quality of life). It would be tragic if the American people were to forget this lesson in nation building, inscribed in the Morrill Landgrant Act at a crucial turning point in American history, just as other nations on the rise are taking it to heart. “The only way to gain more leverage on China,” writes Thomas Friedman in a recent Times column, “is to increase our savings and graduation rates—and export more and consume less” (“Barack Kissinger Obama”), and let us say amen to the graduation rates, a concern indicative of Friedman’s agreement with Wu Bangguo’s view of the relationship of higher education to the strength of nations.