Consisting of an essay and a bibliography, this book provides a discussion of the origins and development of comparative higher education as a field of study, an interpretation of the key issues in higher education as they affect different countries, and a select list of significant contributions to the literature on the subject. The essay begins with an account of the emergence of comparative higher education as an academic subject, and a note of some of the key resources available, such as journals and centers for research. The relationship between universities in different countries is examined, focusing on the transfer of institutional models from one nation to another. The largest part of the essay is an analysis of six key areas of comparative higher education: planning in higher education, the professoriate, governance, university-society relations, student activism, and higher education in the Third World. A final section deals with university reform. The bibliography provides an overview of the subject and a guide for further research. It is a selective list of the most important analytical literature currently available on comparative higher education, together with some key references on higher education in individual nations. (Author/LBH)