The future of American higher education in the 1980s is considered and comments on the following aspects are made: public attitudes, financial trends, future enrollments, use of excess capacity, private institutions, the job market, vocational trends, quality of education, the taxpayer revolt, and faculty compensation. (PHR)

The question of whether private colleges are pricing themselves out of the market is considered. An analysis of the actual application patterns of a sample of high-ability students indicates that colleges and universities are not pricing themselves out of the market. Despite substantial increases in tuition and other fees over the last several…

Financial and survival problems facing private colleges, unless the state governments make major changes in the way public education is financed, are discussed in this speech. The gap between the cost of attending public and private institutions is growing, at least for families with incomes above the median. Many of the best academic colleges and…

The debate with regard to the relationship of the public and private sectors in higher education is increasingly, but necessarily, frantic. The present and future prospects of private as well as public higher education, are not subjects for easy generalization. It seems probable that we will be dealing with a smaller student market in the 1980's.…

At present most private colleges are pricing themselves out of the market, and are asking for public aid to survive as the independent sector of higher education. Private higher education should be seen as important to the United States for educational reasons rather than for reasons of preserving institutions. The educational reasons should be…