Loss, Christopher P. Between Citizens and the State: The Politics of American Higher Education in the 20th Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014.

Summary
During the twentieth century, American higher education was transformed by the partnership between political leaders and university officials who abandoned their laissez-faire relations and “forged a powerful partnership that transformed the country’s plural system of colleges and universities into a repository of expertise, a locus for administrative coordination in the federal government, and a mediator of democratic citizenship.” (1) Political leaders and university officials built a partnership to fight economic depression and poverty, wage world wars hot and cold and secure the rights of previously marginalized Americans. At its peak in the 1960s, this relationship however reconstituted itself into a different form. Through these social and political forces, Loss argues, American higher education emerged as a “parastate,” an intermediary institution that was situated between citizens and the state and was committed to serve both; it became an institution used to mediate the relations between citizens and their government. It became a key institution of the America’s Political Development (APD). Higher education served as a key site where citizens learned about their government and the government, as a chief sponsor of higher education, learned about its citizens. This book examines the three key policy decisions (GI Bill, National Defense and Education Act, and the Higher Ed. Act); how students, faculty and administrators responded to changes and influenced the university; and finally how psychological knowledge changed the organizational structure of universities and colleges.