Competition Higher Education

In recent years, America’s position of leadership in the world has been challenged in many ways. One significant shift is that the country’s position as the preeminent global leader in higher education, particularly in the fields of science and technology, has come into question. American Universities in a Global Market addresses the variety of issues crucial to understanding this change. The volume examines the various factors that contributed to America’s success in higher education, including openness to people and ideas, generous governmental support, and a tradition of decentralized friendly competition.

This book focuses on undergraduate student engagement in China and the UK. It offers an innovative perspective on this aspect, which, although pervasive, is not always acknowledged by its users to be complex and multidimensional in nature, firmly rooted in cultural, social and disciplinary norms, and difficult to measure.

Higher education occupies a difficult place in twenty-first-century American culture. Universities—the institutions that bear so much responsibility for the future health of our nation—are at odds with the very publics they are intended to serve. As Kathleen Fitzpatrick asserts, it is imperative that we re-center the mission of the university to rebuild that lost trust.