Towards Quality Higher Education: Barriers and Enablers

Quality higher education requires attention to character, context, and curriculum. A recently completed large-scale empirical study of ten diverse institutions of higher learning in the United States delineates barriers to such excellence. Two barriers are internal: increasing mental health problems and growing feelings of alienation among students. Two barriers are external: the high costs of higher education and heightened antipathy toward elite institutions and non-vocational tracts. The authors describe approaches and policies designed to alleviate these barriers.