The Role of the State in the Governance of Higher Education

Abstract

W ithin the past 15 to 20 years, the states increasingly have exercised controls over both public and private colleges and universities, controls often deplored but rarely systematically investigated. A series of investigations should be made to increase understanding of the apparent directions and probable limits to state governmental control over critical aspects of higher education. Without such knowledge, historical prerogatives of institutions could be lost, not so much by design as by the happenstance of transient, political, and fiscal pressure. Stephen Bailey (1975) perceptively describes relations between the state and higher education as part of a persistent human paradox. The simultaneous need for structure and antistructure, for dependence and for autonomy, for involvement and for privacy (p. 1). The goal of research and study on this subject should be a clearer understanding and awareness of the details of the opposing forces that underlie the paradox of the interdependence of higher education and the state. The history of the interactions and relationships between the governments of