FreshEd #77 - What Makes American Higher Education Great? (David Labaree)

FreshEd is taking a break for the next few weeks. While we are away, we'll re-play some of our favourite episodes. Special Note: We need your support to keep us ad-free in 2022. If you have the means to do so, please consider donating to FreshEd by visiting freshedpodcast.com/donate. My guest today, David Labaree, argues it was the very decentralized and autonomous structure of the higher education system that allowed universities to develop an entrepreneurial ethos that drove American higher education to become the best. Today, America’s universities and colleges produce the most scholarship, earn the most Nobel prizes, hold the largest endowments, and attract the most esteemed students and scholars from around the world The messy structure of American higher education was not planned, however. There was no strong state or strong church directing the system from above. Rather higher education developed in a free market where survival was never guaranteed. Such a system produced unintended consequences that would make American higher education the envy of the world. David Labaree is a professor of Education at Stanford University. His new book is A Perfect Mess: The unlikely ascendancy of American Higher Education, which was published by the University of Chicago Press earlier this year. Citation: Labaree, David, interview with Will Brehm, FreshEd, 77, podcast audio, June 12, 2017. https://www.freshedpodcast.com/davidlabaree/ -- Get in touch! Twitter: @FreshEdpodcast Facebook: FreshEd Email: [email protected] Support FreshEd: www.freshedpodcast.com/donate