Equity and Excellence in Higher Education: The Decline of a Liberal Educational Reform

Compensatory higher education programs developed as part of the liberal educational reforms of the 1960s and 1970s. Their goal was to compensate for unequal pre-college education and provide equal opportunities for economically and educationally disadvantaged students. This book provides a sociological and historical analysis of the rise and fall of one educational opportunity program that began as an off-campus branch of a state college in the late 1960s, moved to the main campus in the late 1970s, and was eliminated in 1983. The analysis relates to the larger policy questions in higher education, with special reference to issues of equity and excellence.