THE DREAM IS OVER The CRISIS of CLARK KERR’S CALIFORNIA IDEA of HIGHER EDUCATION SIMON MARGINSON Luminos is the open access monograph publishing program from UC Press. Luminos provides a framework for preserving and rein- vigorating monograph publishing for the future and increases the reach and visibility of important scholarly work. Titles published in the UC Press Luminos model are published with the same high standards for selection, peer review, production, and marketing as those in our traditional program. www.luminosoa.org The Dream Is Over THE CLARK KERR LECTURES ON THE ROLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN SOCIETY 1. The American Research University from World War II to World Wide Web: Governments, the Private Sector, and the Emerging Meta-University, by Charles M. Vest 2. Searching for Utopia: Universities and Their Histories, by Hanna Holborn Gray 3. Dynamics of the Contemporary University: Growth, Accretion, and Conflict, by Neil J. Smelser 4. The Dream Is Over: The Crisis of Clark Kerr’s California Idea of Higher Education, by Simon Marginson The Dream Is Over The Crisis of Clark Kerr’s California Idea of Higher Education Simon Marginson UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS The Center for Studies in Higher Education at the University of California, Berkeley, is a multidisciplinary research and policy center on higher education oriented to California, the nation, and comparative international issues. CSHE promotes discussion among university leaders, government officials, and academics; assists policy making by providing a neutral forum for airing contentious issues; and keeps the higher education world informed of new initiatives and proposals. The Center’s research aims to inform current debate about higher education policy and practice. University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advanc- ing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu. University of California Press Oakland, California © 2016 by Simon Marginson This work is licensed under a Creative Commons CC-BY license. To view a copy of the license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses. Suggested citation: Marginson, Simon. The Dream is Over: The Crisis of Clark Kerr’s California Idea of Higher Education. Oakland: University of California Press, 2016. doi: http://doi.org/10.1525/luminos.17 Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress. isbn 978–0-520–29284–0 (pbk. : alk. paper) | isbn 978–0-520–96620–8 (ebook) Manufactured in the United States of America 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To my daughter, Ana Rosa, who is much loved Contents List of Figures and Tables ix Preface xi PART ONE. A CITY UPON A HILL: CLARK KERR AND THE CALIFORNIA IDEA OF HIGHER EDUCATION 1. An Extraordinary Time 3 2. Clark Kerr 5 3. Clark Kerr and the California Idea 11 4. The Uses of the University 21 5. Martin Trow: Higher Education and Its Growth 28 6. Bob Clark: The Academic Heartland 36 7. Whither the California Idea of Higher Education? 40 PART TWO. CROSSING THE WATERS: THE CALIFORNIA IDEA IN THE WORLD 8. The Idea Spreads 51 9. Participation without Limit 56 10. The Spread of Science 65 11. The Global Multiversity 71 12. Systems and Stratification 81 13. American Universities in the Global Space 91 viii Contents 14. Enter the Dragon 96 15. Higher Education in China and the United States 110 PART THREE. BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME: THE CALIFORNIA IDEA IN A MORE UNEQUAL AMERICA 16. Higher Education after Clark Kerr 121 17. The Impossibility of Public Good 126 18. The Impossibility of Taxation 132 19. Economic and Social Inequality 143 20. Unequal Opportunity 152 21. Higher Education and the Economy 168 22. Higher Education and Society 178 Epilogue: After the Dream 193 Notes 201 References 223 Index 239 Figures and Tables FIGURES 14.1. R & D expenditures as a proportion of GDP, East Asia and the United States, 2000–2013 105 14.2. Annual production of published science papers, United States, China, and other East Asia, 1995–2011 107 22.1. Social inequality in bachelor’s degree attainment, United States, 1970 and 2013 179 22.2. Gross tertiary enrolment ratio and gross graduation ratio, United States, 1999–2012 180 22.3. Enrollment in postsecondary institutions and for-profit institutions, United States, 1970–2012 182 TABLES 7.1. University of California campuses in Shanghai ARWU and Leiden research rankings 43 8.1. A means of Californization: Indicators used in the Shanghai ARWU 53 9.1. From elite to mass to universal participation, 1972–2012 57 10.1. Annual output of published journal papers in science, 1995–2011 69 10.2. Fastest-growing national science systems, by country, 1995–2011 70 14.1. Student achievement in PISA reading, science, and mathematics at age 15, 2012 101 14.2. Economy and population, East Asia, United States, and United Kingdom, 2013 104 ix x Figures and Tables 18.1. Student enrollment in public higher education and state and local govern- ment financial support, California, 1960–2010 136 19.1. Income shares of top 1 percent and bottom 50 percent, United States and Europe 147 Preface The Dream Is Over: The Crisis of Clark Kerr’s California Idea of Higher Education is a longer version of the three Clark Kerr Lectures on Higher Education delivered on September 30, October 2, and October 7, 2014, at the University of California Berkeley. I hope that the book is a more considered and evidenced version of the argument made in the fifty-minute lecture format.The Dream Is Over, which is first of all about the sixty-year trajectory of higher education in California and the United States, was written from another country but within an early-twenty- first-century global higher education order shaped in a number of ways by public higher education in California. California is where American higher education reaches its high point, and the United States has dominated worldwide higher edu- cation since World War II: only now is the rest of the world just starting to catch up. Most of the world’s top twenty universities are American, and a number are located in California. All of us who work in higher education in some sense live in California, identifying with its goals and drawing from its fecund freedoms, its vision of growth and opportunity. In examining higher education in California, we reflect on our own deeper beliefs and ideals. The development of the California Idea of higher education was long in com- ing. It had its roots in the larger “California Idea,” the recurring movements of California Progressives and their agenda for democratic prosperity, as outlined by John Douglass in his account of the century leading up to the 1960 Master Plan. Douglass’s clear historical account,1 which is recommended to all readers, has been one of the foundations of this book. When it came to the systematic implementa- tion of the “California Idea” in higher education, the process was led by University of California president Clark Kerr, the main architect of the 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education, the most important American university president since World War II, and a thinker and writer on higher education whose work is still widely xi xii Preface read. The Dream Is Over considers where Clark Kerr’s notions about the public research university (the “multiversity”) and his commitment to a socially inclusive higher education system, dedicated to equality of opportunity and excellence at the same time, continue to be relevant—and where these notions might have become tarnished or rendered obsolete by time. It will argue that while the California Idea of higher education, like all policy-oriented forms, has flaws and limitations, it also contains virtues that have been allowed to deteriorate. The Dream Is Over argues in part 3 that public higher education in California has become trapped within a high individualist politics that ignores and negates the social conditions in which individual freedoms are nurtured and expressed. These conditions include the role of government, which ought to be (and often is) a positive and not a negative influence in society. But in today’s California and United States, as elsewhere in the English-speaking world, many regard taxation as a form of theft, markets are used to value the public good in the social sectors, and wealth and educational power are rapidly concentrating at the top, without regard to those in the middle and at the bottom. The imagined society of the early 1960s, that of a higher education–led meritocracy grounded in equality of opportunity, serving enterprise and justice in equal measure, is over. Hence the bracing title. To find a way forward, we must first acknowledge the situation as it is. The book con- siders future developments in the circumstances, both rich with possibilities (es- pecially at global level) and troubled in values, in which Californian and American public higher education now find themselves located. The book has been organized in three parts, each an expansion of one of the Kerr lectures. Part 1 reviews Clark Kerr and the 1960 Master Plan in their time; discusses scholarly works by Clark Kerr, Martin Trow, and Bob Clark that are part of the Californian contribution to worldwide higher education; and opens discus- sion of the trajectory of the California Idea of higher education within California. Part 2 explores the passage of the California Idea across the world, in the spread of educational capacity and research science in the last two decades, and the rise of new university powers, especially in China and other parts of East Asia.