It is not just the continuation of learning in a structured environment after high school. It goes beyond mastery of the accumulated wisdom of the past.
Higher education is more about the future and the expansion of knowledge.
It tests, stretches, probes, challenges and dreams. The principal way that higher education achieves this expansive future focus is through research, the critical and exhaustive quest for better answers, models, solutions, processes and products. Research in colleges and universities is an important expectation for students, especially graduate students but also increasingly for undergraduates as well. However, the main domain of research in higher education is the faculty. Of course, in most universities these two settings are not exclusive.