8 books that may aid your understanding of the crisis in higher education

Now is the perfect time to look with clear eyes at the goals, accomplishments, and failures of higher education.

Excerpt: "The past 10 years have been among the most tumultuous for higher education since the student movements of the 1960s. The 2020s began with a wave of progressive fervor that swept the nation and was especially notable on America’s campuses.

Five years later, the cultural pendulum has swung in the opposite direction. After a series of protests against the war in Gaza, followed by police crackdowns and debates over anti-Semitism, American universities (especially elite ones) are having their influential role in political life scrutinized.

But arguments over their ideological bent have overshadowed the other major ways these institutions affect the country: Since at least the end of World War II, they have been driving forces for prosperity, social mobility, and world-changing scientific innovation. They underpin a huge portion of the country’s sports ecosystem, provide the setting for hundreds of works of pop culture, and shape how Americans understand the transition from child to adult.

President Donald Trump’s administration has made unprecedented attacks on America’s colleges and universities, and the effects of this onslaught are not limited to degree seekers, faculty, or administration—they ripple across American society, affecting, for example, patients who rely on universities’ affiliated teaching hospitals and college towns where academic institutions are the main employers.

There is no better time to look with clear eyes at the goals, accomplishments, and failures of these schools.

The eight books on this list, taken in combination, tell the story of the historic rise, and current crisis, of the American university."