Higher education as a field of study: Its origins, programs, and purposes, 1893–1960

Abstract

Abstract G. Stanley Hall's desire to reform colleges and universities through promotion of the study of higher education was the beginning of efforts to professionalize administrative work and create higher education faculty. Although the study of higher education has yet to reach maturity, it possesses many of the attributes of a scholarly field. Programs designed to prepare persons for entry into professional work in higher education exist in profusion. There are approximately eight hundred professors who think of themselves as professors of higher education. Departments of higher education and centers or institutes affiliated with universities sponsor research concerning higher education as well as provide degree and public service programs. A growing literature deals with various parts of the higher education domain. And a growing bureaucracy associated with quasieducational organizations concerns itself with generating new and systematic knowledge about higher education.