The Ascendancy of American Research Universities, 1870-1940

美国研究型大学的优势，1870 年至 1940 年

• 批准号: 0851788
• 负责人: Shawn Kantor
• 金额: $ 31.1万
• 依托单位: National Bureau of Economic Research Inc
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-08-01 至 2013-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0851788&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Ascendancy; American; Research; Universities; 1870

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.

经济学家将20世纪描述为“美国世纪”和“人类首都”（参见Goldin and Katz 2008）。然而，令人惊讶的是，几乎没有研究探讨了过去100年中美国经济进步的巨大经济进步与中学后机构扮演的角色之间的细节。拟议的研究是一个长期项目的一部分，该项目将探讨公众对高等教育的支持如何影响1870年至今的美国经济增长。在过去的十年中，州和地方政府平均投入了约7％的收入来支持公共高等教育，如今总计约780亿美元（Sheeo 2007，45）。联邦政府还直接向机构（学生）（学生）直接为高等教育提供了重大支持。国家教育统计中心（Sonnenberg 2003）编制的最新数据表明，联邦政府为2003财年的大教堂后教育计划贡献了585亿美元。今天的决策者经常在鼓励高科学发展或培训劳动力竞争基于全球知识和信息的广泛发展的广泛背景下为高等教育提供支持。尽管经常引用的论点是，公众对高等教育的投资是一个国家或地区经济进步的核心，但很少的研究探讨了这个问题。拟议的项目将寻求通过编译和分析以前未开发和非常详细的数据来填补这一空白，从1870年到1940年的美国大学的发展？ Goldin and Katz（1999）认为“形成期”的时期？在美国高等教育的发展中，该项目将寻求回答的中心问题包括：现代美国研究大学发展对当地经济增长的影响是什么？哪些经济和政治力量在19世纪末和20世纪初在美国研究型大学的迅速上升？在这个早期，公立大学和大学之间竞争的性质是什么？为他们的后续发展奠定了基础？拟议的研究的主要目标之一是收集，编码，清洁和分析以前未探索的个人公共和私人学科后教育机构的数据。机构级别的数据每年从1870年至1918年发布，此后两年一次。我们将能够收集的数据包括该机构的地点，宗教信仰，开放年份，教职员工，学生和毕业生的数量，总收入，来自各种来源，财产，奖学金和奖学金和私人捐赠的收入，财产，奖学金和奖学金。这些数据将与基于机构所在地的十年年度人口，制造业和农业普查数据相匹配，以衡量社会在高等教育中的公共和私人投资对经济影响。BROADERIMPACTS拟议的研究将扩大我们对专业后教育与后教育与研究和经济增长之间公共投资之间关系的理解。我们将在赠款的主持下创建并公开公开的机构级别数据集将为对美国高等教育感兴趣的其他研究人员提供宝贵的信息来源，并辨别其历史发展中的长期趋势。此外，该研究的结果将与当今的决策者有关，他们应对非常严格的预算限制，并质疑公共高等教育投资的回报。最后，该研究将聘请众多本科研究人员，希望他们对经济学研究感兴趣，并因此决定接受研究生教育。