Loss, Christopher P. Between Citizens and the State: The Politics of American Higher Education in the 20th Century. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014.

== Summary ==
During
the twentieth century, American higher education was transformed by the
partnership between political leaders and university officials who abandoned
their laissez-faire relations and “forged a powerful partnership that
transformed the country’s plural system of colleges and universities into a
repository of expertise, a locus for administrative coordination in the federal
government, and a mediator of democratic citizenship.” (1) Political leaders
and university officials built a partnership to fight economic depression and
poverty, wage world wars hot and cold and secure the rights of previously
marginalized Americans. At its peak in the 1960s, this relationship however
reconstituted itself into a different form. Through these social and political
forces, Loss argues, American higher education emerged as a “parastate,” an
intermediary institution that was situated between citizens and the state and
was committed to serve both; it became an institution used to mediate the
relations between citizens and their government. It became a key institution of
the America’s Political Development (APD). Higher education served as a key
site where citizens learned about their government and the government, as a
chief sponsor of higher education, learned about its citizens. This book
examines the three key policy decisions (GI Bill, National Defense and
Education Act, and the Higher Ed. Act); how students, faculty and
administrators responded to changes and influenced the university; and finally
how psychological knowledge changed the organizational structure of
universities and colleges.