Clark Kerr, the Master Plan and public higher education in California today
- Simon Marginson, UCL Institute of Education
Overview
Simon Marginson examines the crisis of public higher education in the US ? even though higher education along American lines is flourishing in many countries abroad. This seminar is based on Professor Marginson’s new book, The dream is over: the crisis of Clark Kerr?s California idea of higher education.
While the Californian model of higher education has been the most influential single model in shaping university systems worldwide, it has been profoundly eroded at home.
Amid an increasingly unequal economy and society in the US, access to higher education for all in California has been lost and even the brilliant science-based universities are now under long-term threat of losing ground to domestic and foreign competitors.
Professor Marginson looks at the reasons behind the reluctance of the middle class taxpayer and the political system to maintain the California Master Plan vision of higher education. He highlights the fiscal incapacity of US states to support public higher education, and proposes an overhaul of the student loans system as a potential solution, with income contingent loans replacing the present mortgage-style loans.
Share this event
Simon Marginson is Professor of International Higher Education at UCL Institute of Education, and Joint Editor-in-Chief of the journal Higher Education. He focuses on comparative international and global aspects of higher education, including systems and strategy. He is Director of the Centre for Global Higher Education, and leads CGHE’s global higher education engagement research programme.
