Since World War II, American higher education has been transformed by the postwar baby boom, the GI Bill, federally funded research partly inspired by the Cold War, and the belief that education is the foundation of democracy, prosperity, and national security. The expansion of higher education, particularly public universities and community colleges, opened new opportunities to minorities and the poor. No longer were colleges the ivory towers of the pre-World War II era. During the turbulent years of the 1960s and 1970s, colleges became sites for political activity, which included teach-ins on and protests against the Vietnam War, civil rights activism, and protests to remove ROTC from the curriculum and to stop the military from recruiting on campus. More subtly, since the end of the Cold War higher education has been part of America's ascendancy as the world's only superpower. Exchange programs and international students have...