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26 - Wealth Stratification in US Higher Education and Democratic Education, 1890s–2020s

from Part Four - Challenges

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 April 2023

By
Bruce A. Kimball  and
Sarah M. Iler
Edited by
Julian Culp ,
Johannes Drerup  and
Douglas Yacek
Julian Culp
Affiliation:
The American University of Paris, France
Johannes Drerup
Affiliation:
Universität Dortmund
Douglas Yacek
Affiliation:
Universität Dortmund
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Summary

Higher education in the United States advanced democracy during the much of the twentieth century by fostering social mobility and by deepening students’ understanding of democratic citizenship, as well as strengthening their capacity to participate in a democratic polity. Concurrently, higher education enjoyed widespread esteem in the United States, while colleges and universities became highly stratified by financial capital, or endowment size, which was closely correlated with prestige. Yet, this financial stratification widened into a yawning "wealth gap" that precipitated a decline in public esteem near the end of the twentieth century. This historical chapter explains these developments and argues that wealth concentration in higher education and wealth inequality in the US population are interrelated, and this interrelationship weakens social mobility and democracy in the twenty-first century.

Keywords

democracysocial mobilityendowmentfundraisinginvestingstudent debtwealth stratificationfinancial inequality
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Democratic Education , pp. 435 - 455
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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