Page 33 - Crisis in Higher Education

8 • Crisis in Higher Education

There are big differences in enrollment by institution type. Table 1.2
shows that public institutions had a dominant market share in 2009
with 14,810,642 students or 72.5% of the total. Enrollment in private,
not-for-profit institutions was 3,765,083 students or 18.4%, while pri-
vate, for-profit institutions had 1,851,986 students or 9.1%. These figures
combine full- and part-time enrollment in two-year and four-year insti-
tutions. Despite large enrollment differences between public institutions
and private, not-for-profit institutions, there are approximately 1,650 of
each type. This number is largely unchanged since the late 1980s and has
increased only slightly since 1975. On the other hand, private, for-profit
institutions have increased from a handful in the late 1970s to nearly
1,200 by 2010. 6,7
With respect to four-year degrees, public institutions enrolled 7,709,197
full- and part-time students in 2009, whereas private institutions enrolled
5,197,108. For two-year degrees, nearly all enrollments were in public
institutions with 7,101,445 students. Private, two-year institutions, both
6,7
not-for-profit and for-profit, enrolled only 419,961 students. A likely
explanation for the dominance of public institutions is that state and local
subsidies keep tuition low, which negates the small class-size advantage of
some private institutions. The dominance of public, two-year institutions
may be further explained by the inability of private, two-year institutions
to claim elite status as private, four-year institutions tend to do.

1.1.2 Types of Faculty
When most people hear the term faculty, visions of scholarly, thought-
ful, somewhat befuddled tenured professors come to mind, but this is
a shrinking part of higher education. Faculty who teach the majority
of courses at community and technical colleges and in undergraduate
programs are full- and part-time contractual faculty as well as graduate
teaching assistants. A description of the different types follows:

1. Tenured and tenure-track faculty: Generally speaking, this group holds
the intellectual capital of institutions of higher learning. In addition to
teaching, they are responsible for conducting research and serving the
institution and the academy in various roles such as curriculum design,
governance, and support for academic journals that publish research.
In almost all cases, they are full-time employees, and they either have
tenure or are in the process of earning it. If they are successful, they