Sixteenth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

Higher education is increasingly in peril in America as federal and state governments decrease funding year after year. In a country that was built upon the principle that every citizen has the right to an education and the opportunities an education affords, it would seem inevitable that the American public would resist such a trend; sadly, this is not the case. On the contrary, much of the American public has bought into the myth created in the twentieth century that academia should be viewed with suspicion if not outright fear. This paper is a follow-up to one presented in 2011, “Sustaining the Culture of Higher Education;” in it we review the factors leading to the current condition of academia in the USA and to suggest ways to combat the decline and sustain the excellence of higher education in America.