A 150-Year Experiment: Colleges That Serve Everyone

[marmar]

from OnTheCommons.org:


A 150-Year Experiment: Colleges That Serve Everyone
Land-grant schools make a natural ally for the commons movement

June 19, 2012 | by Leodis Scott


The historic land-grant tradition of higher education in the United States shares notable similarities to the emerging interest in the “commons”. Having researched scholarship regarding land-grant institutions and recently becoming aware of strategies for a commons-based society, I am struck by their common mission, and commitment to the public interest. This article is intended to introduce land-grant institutions, which celebrate their 150th anniversary this year to the “commoners” in hopes of bringing together advocates for the advancement of our communities and society.

From the perspective of both commons advocates and land-grant institutions, higher education should be a public good-for-all. Many have argued that the rising costs of tuition, student loans, and enrollment practices have privatized higher education. So the original establishment of land-grant institutions returns us to an earlier idea of offering teaching, research, and service for the masses The commons movement calls attention to shared and public goods that “belong to all of us”—of which higher, adult, and continuing education could be included.

Land-grant institutions, since their inception with the First Morrill Act of 1862, have been in a continual process of renewing and transforming their traditional mission. This transformation requires mutual, reciprocal, and shared relationships between institutions and communities. However, many land-grant institutions today express difficulties in quantifying community voices to benchmark, assess, and evaluate significant outcomes and systematic change. Advocates and proponents of the commons-based strategy may regard land-grant institutions as an appropriate venue to do the following:

1) Introduce a commons-based strategy to all land-grant institutions;
2) Serve as the collective community voice that land-grant institutions can assess their service and engagement outcomes; and
3) Make new and lasting partnerships that fulfill the common good of the public, especially higher, adult, and continuing education.

Some specific commons-based actions might include revisiting service-learning programs, community-based research, engaged scholarship, and starting a 21st century “commons-colleges” movement. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://onthecommons.org/magazine/150-year-experiment-colleges-serve-everyone

[kestrel91316]

1. I am very proud to have received both my BS and my DVM from a

land grant university that dates back to the 1870s.

[MrTwister]

2. The simple problem is that state and fed gov't are de-funding them.

Why does tuition go up so fast at public colleges?

Because gov't funds them less and less per student. Colleges have to make up the difference. Cost per student at community colleges is the same or lower now than 10 years ago, but tuition is higher, because of de-funding.