Teaching and Learning

Running head : EVENTS THAT HAS INFLUENCED THE DEVELOPMENT OF

HIGHER EDUCATION

Events That Has Influenced the Development of Higher Education (Your Name (Name of Your Institution

EVENTS THAT HAS INFLUENCED THE DEVELOMENT OF HIGHER EDUCATION

According to John R . Thelin et al (2007 , the story of growth of United States higher education began more than 300 year ago even before the United States come into being . From seventeenth century , the idea of an American higher education grew into fruitation throughout the centuries that followed . At the start of 21st century , higher education

br in the U .S stood as a formidable enterprise . According to Kerr (1963 it is an established `knowledge industry ' representing 3 percent of the gross national product . Colleges and Universities are seen as critical elements of state 's economic and cultural development . United States has a pro of more that 4 ,000 accredited universities that spend about 26 billion per year on research and development , with 16 billions coming from federal agencies . These institutions have the ability to attract expertise all over the world . Let us explore the historical development of higher education and factors leading to the development

According to Brint et al (1989 , starting with the colonial period education has evolved through ranks to what it is today . New England settlers included many alumni of the Royally Chartered British Universities , Cambridge and oxford , and therefore believed education was essential . The puritans emphasized a learned clergy and an educated civil leadership . This was one to the factor that led to early development of higher education . People recognized the need to have a learned population and strived to provide education for the population This drive developed Harvard College in 1636 . Between foundation of Harvard and the start of the American Revolution , the colonist chartered nine colleges and seminaries but only in the southern part of America Hence the development of higher education can be credited to the early settlers . Most colleges were created on religious bases . As the First Great Awakening of the 1730s to 1770s initiated growth in a wider variety of protestant churches , each denomination desired its own seminary . Each colony tended to favor a particular denomination and so the new colleges took on an importance for regional development as well e .g . Presbyterians in New Jersey founded the College of New Jersey later to be renamed Princeton , the College of William and Mary in Virginia maintained a strong Anglican orientation , the Baptists who had been expelled from Massachusetts Bay Colony and settled in Rhode Island established their own college but in an unusual move did not require religious tests for admission , and so many other examples . These colonial colleges although admitting not more that a hundred students made historic contributions to both political thought and actions in America . The colonial education was limited by the fact that it remained elite and exclusionary . It admitted only white Christian males denying entry for women and African-American males . They argued that they wanted to educate young Christian males...