Higher Education in the United States: Laissez‐Faire, Differentiation, and Research

Miguel Urquiola

Asian Economic Policy Review, 2023, vol. 18, issue 2, 196-213

Abstract: The U.S. higher education system stands out in three dimensions. First, it has the highest number of leading research universities. Second, it displays significant differentiation: multiple types of institutions offer services that differ in cost, prestige, etc. Third, it has a laissez‐faire/free‐market orientation: private and public entities are free to open schools and compete; essentially all schools enjoy substantial autonomy. This paper makes the case that these features are systematically related. The development of the American higher education market—which allowed market forces to operate and lacked centralized planning—contributed to the emergence of differentiation and a set of leading research universities.

Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/aepr.12419

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:asiapr:v:18:y:2023:i:2:p:196-213

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=1832-8105

Access Statistics for this article

Asian Economic Policy Review is currently edited by Takatoshi Ito, Akira Kojima, Colin McKenzie and Shujiro Urata

More articles in Asian Economic Policy Review from Japan Center for Economic Research Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().