The first of two articles, "Some trends and countertrends," is a retrospective analysis of both the trends that have supported expanded higher educational opportunities and of intervening issues that have interfered with the inherently expansionist trends. A subtle but crucial distinction is made between trends towards expanded opportunities in employment, housing, and education in the context of legal and mass demonstrations extending the protection of the Fourteenth Amendment to a wider segment of the citizenry; and trends toward an inherently educational response stemming from academic momentum and commitment to the training of an enlarged and more diversified student population. This suggests an examination of those trends that have supported expansion of higher educational opportunities as well as those that ran counter more by virtue of alternate emphases and commitments than any direct opposition. The second article, "Access to higher education," examines some of the political and social factors involved in expanding opportunities for higher education. Among these factors are: the role of the black college: the assasination of Martin Luther King; Supreme Court litigation; discriminatory systems of secondary and elementary education, especially with respect to tracking; and, the development of scholarship programs. (JM)