BiblioVault - Books about Private universities and colleges

Crisis in Higher Education

A Plan to Save Small Liberal Arts Colleges in America

Jeffrey R. Docking

Michigan State University Press, 2014

In 2005 Adrian College was home to 840 enrolled students and had a tuition income of $8.54 million. By fall of 2011, enrollment had soared to 1,688, and tuition income had increased to $20.45 million. For the first time in years, the small liberal arts college was financially viable. Adrian College experienced this remarkable growth during the worst American economy in seventy years and in a state ravaged by the decline of the big three auto companies. How, exactly, did this turnaround happen? Crisis in Higher Education: A Plan to Save Small Liberal Arts Colleges in America was written to facilitate replication and generalization of Adrian College’s tremendous enrollment growth and retention success since 2005. This book directly addresses the economic competitiveness of small four-year institutions of higher education and presents an evidence-based solution to the enrollment and economic crises faced by many small liberal arts colleges throughout the country.

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The Impact of College Diversity

Struggles and Successes at Age 30

Elizabeth Aries

Temple University Press, 2023

In 2005, Elizabeth Aries chronicled what 58 Amherst College freshman—Black and white, affluent and lower-income—learned from racial and class diversity. Her study emphasized the value of campus diversity at elite colleges. Four years later, Aries interviewed the same students about their diversity experiences as they graduated. Now, eight years later, she re-interviews her participants to see how and to what extent race and class continue to play a role as they move into adulthood.

The Impact of College Diversity details how exposure to diversity in college helped shape Black and white graduates process issues of economic and racial privilege and inequality at age 30. She investigates how college diversity experiences also facilitate the attainment of upward social mobility in lower-income students and the role that mobility played in their relationships with family and friends in their home communities. Aries further examines how interactions with peers of another race and class influenced development of citizenship skills and civic engagement, as well as Black students’ ability to cope with the challenges they faced in the professional world.

Aries concludes her study with a discussion of why elite colleges have been beneficial in promoting upward mobility in lower-income students, and the importance of achieving equity and inclusion in making diversity initiatives successful.

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Outside the Limelight

Basketball in the Ivy League

Orton, Kathy

Rutgers University Press, 2018

The Ivy League is a place where basketball is neither a pastime nor a profession. Instead, it is a true passion among players, coaches, and committed sports enthusiasts who share in its every success and setback. Outside the Limelight is the first book to look inside Ivy League basketball and at the boundless enthusiasm that defines it.

With painstaking reportage, Kathy Orton vividly captures the internal fervor of the personalities who champion their gameùall the triumphs and disappointments of an Ivy hoop season. Scholarships for student athletes? None, and this is the only Division I conference that does not offer them. The TV spotlight? It barely shines, despite the passion, talent, and commitment of the players. Megadollar contracts from the NBA? Rarely does a player receive an offer. These age-old institutions are better known for turning out presidents, not point guards, and CEOs and captains of industry, not centers on the court.

Orton weaves together the stories of coaches and players as they move from fall practice through an entire season and ahead to the NCAA tournament. From Harvard to Penn, Princeton to Cornell and beyond, playersùperhaps more accustomed to pomp and circumstanceùface leaky gyms, endure long bus rides, rigorous courseloads, and unbearable exam schedules. Why? Just to prove they can hang with the big boys despite juggling multiple non-athletic responsibilities? Maybe. But more importantly, for the sincere love of the game.

Outside the Limelight provides frontcourt vision for college basketball fans everywhere to achieve an appreciation of this captivating conference and for diehard enthusiasts to gain greater insight into what brings Ivy League basketball to center circle.

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Private Sectors in Higher Education

Structure, Function, and Change in Eight Countries

Roger L. Geiger

University of Michigan Press, 1986

Private Sectors in Higher Education examines how the tasks of higher education have been divided between public and private institutions, and with what consequences. In doing so, the author analyzes both the comparative structures of educational systems and their social relations. Besides correcting the widespread misperception that private higher education is predominately an American phenomenon, this study should enlarge the range of experience that can be brought to bear on issues currently facing public policy and private higher education. It constitutes the first scholarly treatment of private higher education outside the United States. Case studies of private sectors in seven countries—Belgium, France, Great Britain, Japan, the Netherlands, the Philippines, and Sweden—form the core of this work. This material provides a perspective for probing several underlying rationales for private higher education in the United States. And finally, the author analyzes the issue of government financial support for private higher education. This book should significantly contribute to enlarging the framework of discussion of this question by broadening the understanding of the social and political underpinnings of public/private division in higher education.

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Race and Class Matters at an Elite College

Elizabeth Aries

Temple University Press, 2008

In Race and Class Matters at an Elite College, Elizabeth Aries provides a rare glimpse into the challenges faced by black and white college students from widely different class backgrounds as they come to live together as freshmen. Based on an intensive study Aries conducted with 58 students at Amherst College during the 2005-2006 academic year, this book offers a uniquely personal look at the day-to-day thoughts and feelings of students as they experience racial and economic diversity firsthand, some for the first time.

Through online questionnaires and face-to-face interviews, Aries followed four groups of students throughout their first year of college: affluent whites, affluent blacks, less financially advantaged whites from families with more limited education, and less financially advantaged blacks from the same background. Drawing heavily on the voices of these freshmen, Aries chronicles what they learned from racial and class diversity—and what colleges might do to help their students learn more.

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Speaking of Race and Class

The Student Experience at an Elite College

Elizabeth Aries

Temple University Press, 2012

In Speaking of Race and Class, the follow-up volume to her groundbreaking Race and Class Matters at an Elite College, Elizabeth Aries completes her four-year study of diversity at a prestigious liberal arts college. Here, the 58 students—affluent, lower-income, black, and white—that Aries has interviewed since they were Amherst freshmen provide a complete picture of what and how each group learned about issues of race and class.

Aries presents the students’ personal perceptions of their experiences. She reveals the extent to which learning from diversity takes place on campus, and examines the distinct challenges that arise for students living in this heterogeneous community. Aries also looks more broadly at how colleges and universities across the country are addressing the challenges surrounding diversity. Speaking of Race and Class testifies to the programming and practices that have proven successful.

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