Goals for United States higher education: from democracy to globalisation

Although globalisation has been an increasingly important characteristic of United States higher education for over two decades, there has been little historical analysis of the process or its origins. This article argues that beginning in the early 1970s, institutional, national, and international events established a powerful context for the development of college and university goals that focus on globalisation. These goals are substantially different from the goals of improving the democracy and opportunities for full citizenship articulated in the report of the 1947 President's Commission on Higher Education and subsequently affirmed in other national reports as late as 1971.