The Ascendancy of American Research Universities, 1870-1940

经济学家将20世纪世纪描述为典型的“美国世纪”和“人力资本世纪”（见Goldin和Katz，2008）。然而，令人惊讶的是，很少有研究探讨美国在过去100年中取得的巨大经济进步与高等教育机构所扮演的角色之间的联系。这项研究是一个长期项目的一部分，该项目将探讨从1870年至今，公众对高等教育的支持如何影响美国经济增长。在过去的十年中，州和地方政府平均将大约7%的收入用于支持公立高等教育，目前约为780亿美元（SHEEO 2007，45）。联邦政府也为高等教育提供了大量的支持，不仅直接支持高等教育机构，也支持高等教育的消费者（学生）。国家教育统计中心汇编的最新数据（Sonnenberg，2003年）显示，2003财政年度，联邦政府为中学后教育项目提供了585亿美元。今天的决策者经常在鼓励发展高科技或培训能够在以知识和信息为基础的日益全球化的经济中竞争的劳动力的广泛背景下表达他们对高等教育的支持。尽管高等教育的公共投资对一个国家或地区的经济发展至关重要，但很少有研究探讨这个问题。拟议中的项目将试图通过汇编和分析以前未开发的非常详细的数据来填补这一空白，这些数据涉及1870年至1940年美国学院和大学的发展。戈尔丁和卡茨（1999年）称之为？形成期？本研究试图回答的核心问题包括：现代美国研究型大学的发展对当地经济增长的影响是什么？在19世纪末和20世纪初，是什么经济和政治力量促成了美国研究型大学的迅速崛起？在这个早期阶段，公立和私立学院和大学之间的竞争的性质是什么，为它们随后的发展奠定了基础？拟议的研究的主要目标之一将是收集，编码，清理和分析以前未探索的数据对个别公共和私立中学后教育机构。从1870年到1918年，机构层面的数据每年公布一次，此后每两年公布一次。我们将能够收集的数据包括机构？学校所在地、宗教信仰、开办年份、教职员工、学生和毕业生人数、总收入、各种来源的收入、财产、奖学金和奖学金以及私人捐赠。这些数据将与十年一次的人口、制造业和农业普查数据相匹配，以衡量社会对高等教育的公共和私人投资的经济影响。更广泛的影响拟议的研究将拓宽我们对高等教育和研究的公共投资与经济增长之间关系的理解。我们将在拨款的支持下创建并公开的机构级数据集将为其他对美国高等教育感兴趣的研究人员提供宝贵的信息来源，并在其历史发展中识别长期趋势。此外，研究结果将与今天的政策制定者有关，他们正在努力应对非常紧张的预算限制，并质疑公立高等教育投资的回报。最后，这项研究将雇用许多本科研究人员，他们希望对经济学研究感兴趣，并因此决定接受研究生教育。

Economists have described the Twentieth Century as quintessentially both the "American Century" and the "Human Capital Century" (see Goldin and Katz 2008). Yet there is surprisingly little research that explores the details of the connection between the dramatic economic progress of the United States over the last 100 years and the role that postsecondary institutions have played. The proposed research is part of a longer-term project that will explore how public support for higher education has influenced American economic growth from 1870 to present. Over the past decade state and local governments have devoted an average of approximately seven percent of their revenues to support public higher education, today amounting to about $78 billion (SHEEO 2007, 45). The federal government also provides significant support for higher education, both directly to the institutions, but also to its consumers (students). The latest data compiled by the National Center for Education Statistics (Sonnenberg 2003) show that the federal government contributed $58.5 billion to postsecondary educational programs in FY 2003. Policymakers today often couch their support for higher education in the broad context of encouraging the development of high-technology or training a workforce that can compete in an increasingly global economy based on knowledge and information. Despite the oft-cited argument that public investment in higher education is central to a country's or region's economic progress, little research has explored the question. The proposed project will seek to fill this void by compiling and analyzing previously unexplored and very detailed data on the development of American colleges and universities from 1870 to 1940 ? a time period that Goldin and Katz (1999) dub the ?formative period? in the development of American higher education.The central questions this project will seek to answer include: What was the impact of the development of modern American research universities on local economic growth? What economic and political forces contributed to the rapid ascendancy of American research universities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? What was the nature of the competition between public and private colleges and universities in this early period that set the stage for their subsequent development?One of the primary objectives of the proposed research will be to collect, code, clean, and analyze previously unexplored data on individual public and private postsecondary educational institutions. The institutional-level data were published annually from 1870 to 1918 and biennially thereafter. The data we will be able to collect include the institution?s location, religious affiliation, year opened, numbers of faculty, students and graduates, total income, income from various sources, property, fellowships and scholarships, and private endowments. These data will be matched with decennial population, manufacturing, and agricultural census data based on the location of the institution in order to measure the economic impact of society's public and private investments in higher education.Broader ImpactThe proposed research will broaden our understanding of the relationship between public investment in postsecondary education and research and economic growth. The institutional-level dataset that we will create and make public under the auspices of the grant will provide an invaluable source of information for other researchers interested in higher education in the U.S. and in discerning long-run trends in its historical development. Further, the results of the research will be relevant to policymakers today who grapple with very tight budget constraints and question the return to investments in public higher education. Finally, the research will employ numerous undergraduate researchers who hopefully will become interested in economics research and consequently decide to pursue graduate education.