Should Higher Ed Act as a Corporation or as Public Service?

Higher education is at a critical crossroads. Institutions face challenges from fewer college-age students and rising operational costs, but the core issue is an identity crisis: Should higher education act primarily as a corporation or as a public service? Political hostility, negative rhetoric and mounting pressures amplify this crisis, creating a psychological challenge that threatens the foundation of the educational enterprise.

The critiques directed toward higher education—such as concerns about degree utility in the labor force and return on investment and debates over free speech and diversity, equity and inclusion—reflect ongoing tensions. These issues, raised by both the current U.S. government’s administration and the party that supports it, may influence public perception and policy. However, the objectives seem clear: Keep citizens ignorant and without agency to question leaders, dehumanize and subjugate people by tying an individual’s sole worth to labor and industry in service of private interests, and uphold deplorable beliefs in sexism, homophobia and racism.

Logical thinking can be difficult under frequent accusations, suspicion and threats, creating a tense environment. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, “During an episode of psychosis, a person’s thoughts and perceptions are disrupted, and they may have difficulty recognizing what is real and what is not.” Emotions such as fear, panic and anger can affect the educational enterprise and society. The sector and society sometimes struggle to distinguish between competing narratives: Is higher education a business or a service? Revisiting the history and purpose of higher education may provide a valuable perspective.

America’s educational system, as first championed by the Puritans in the 1600s, focused the benefits of a literate populace who by being the best at their chosen occupation fulfilled a moral obligation to God and the greater community. It was considered a sin not to develop an individual’s God-given talent. In his 1958 essay published in Pennsylvania History vol. 25, no. 3, “The Puritan Influence on Education,” Clifford J. Shipton writes that the Puritans’ notion of education as a service to the public good led to the 1644 initiative to levy taxes and encourage other types of contributions in support of Harvard. Education benefited all—better skills, better communities. Those receiving education and those enabling education understood private interest must not be opposition to the public good.

Education developed as a mechanism to serve others with empathy, kindness, respect and fairness. Its purpose was not to profit from inequities of poverty, race or gender. Education became a physical manifestation of the golden rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” found in Matthew 7:12 and Luke 6:31. Many colleges and universities were established by religious sects as a moral imperative to serve others. Examples include the College of William and Mary (Church of England), Princeton University (Presbyterian), Georgetown University (Catholic), St. Olaf College (Lutheran) and Emory University (Methodist). John Wesley (1703–1791), founder of Methodism, thought deeply about education as a means of spiritual and intellectual growth. In the Wesleyan tradition, education is the great equalizer. It raises all people to their potential and improves their condition.

The founders saw the importance of a competent, educated citizenry. Their purpose was a moral obligation to each other, not just to God. To be a contributing member of a democracy, one must have character and the capacity to make informed decisions. Civic participation, rights protection and resistance to tyrants are key to establishing and upholding democracy. Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), John Adams (1735–1826) and Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) championed public education. Jefferson argued, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free … it expects what never was and never will be,” and “whenever the people are well informed, they may be trusted with their own government.” His vision for the University of Virginia (founded in 1819) was “based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind, to explore and to expose every subject susceptible of its contemplation.”

Franklin also believed in shared responsibility for the greater good. He modeled civic duty through community investments and helped establish charitable institutions, including the Library Company of Philadelphia (1731), the Union Fire Company (1736) and the University of Pennsylvania (1740). His ideas on charity and investments led to the development of philanthropy and to what became “nonprofit” or “not-for-profit” organizations. Legal recognition came in the Revenue Act of 1894, and subsequent acts in 1909 and 1913 granted tax exemptions.

Public service was not a new concept to the founders; it can be found in the workings of ancient civilizations such as Greece, Rome and Egypt. The structure of government purposefully included means of ensuring justice and order. In the U.S. and in other democracies, services such as public health, utilities, education, law enforcement and social services are woven into local, state and federal governance structure. Specifically, the U.S. Department of Education was established in 1979–80 by President Jimmy Carter (1924–2024) with goals of consolidating services and ensuring equal access to education and upholding civil rights. He believed elevating education should be a priority investment. Other important federal acts in support of equal access to education include Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the Equal Education Opportunities Act of 1974, the Individuals With Disabilities Act of 1975 (updated 2004) and others.

Colleges and universities grew in the 18th and 19th centuries, built on the ideals of the church and the republic. The federal land-grant institutions, created through the Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890, furthered education for the working class. They benefited communities and industries through research and extension programs. However, these institutions were established at the expense of Native peoples, whose land was taken.

Individuals also sought to educate the populace. In 1824, Stephen Van Rensselaer (1764–1839), a landowner, politician and philanthropist, established the first technical college: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. These colleges aimed to teach how to apply science to everyday life.

While early higher education imperfectly focused on the white free men, the foundational beliefs in the importance of education was set to expand the application of freedom to others. Women and men advocated for and established institutions to serve women. Abigail Adams (1744–1818) implored her husband, John, to “remember the ladies” when discussing citizens’ rights and education. Pioneers of women’s education include Emma Willard (1787–1870), Mary Lyon (1797–1849), Catharine Beecher (1800–1878), Jane Addams (1860–1935), Benjamin Rush (1746–1813) and Catholic nuns.

Early schools for women were academies, equivalent to secondary schools. These institutions focused on preparing women to become teachers and later evolved into colleges and universities. Examples include Bethlehem Female Academy in 1742 (now Moravian University), Salem College in 1772 (the oldest in continuous operation), Clinton Female Seminary in 1821—which awarded the first baccalaureate degree to a woman in 1840 (now Wesleyan College)—Mount Holyoke Female Seminary in 1837 (now Mount Holyoke College) and Valley Union Seminary in 1842 (now Hollins University).

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797) advocated for women’s education in her essay “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects” (1792, published in the U.S. in 1794). Her writing influenced American advocates. Wollstonecraft argued that women deserve a moral right to education because they are human beings. She called for intellectual equality and freedom: “Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience.”

Early efforts to champion the rights of African Americans found fertile ground in the North. Abolitionists and groups like the Protestant-based American Missionary Association (1846) played major roles. Several historically Black colleges and universities were founded before the end of the Civil War and Reconstruction. These included Cheyney University of Pennsylvania (1837), the University of the District of Columbia (1851), Lincoln University (1854) and Wilberforce University (1856).

The AMA went on to create and support in whole or in part numerous institutions for African Americans, such as Atlanta University (est. 1865, now Clark Atlanta University), Fisk University (1866), Hampton Institute (est. 1868, now Hampton University) and Howard University (1867), among others. In AMA’s American Missionary vol. 42, no. 6, 1888, the reason to afford education to African Americans was “to awaken their minds, to arouse the energies of hope, to show them that they are made in God’s image and that they have a right to all the liberties of the laws of God, is the only way to complete and secure their emancipation from bondage and from barbarism.”

Higher education, as a public service focused on the inalienable rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” constructed a pathway to freedom itself, as articulated in the Declaration of Independence of 1776.

“Life”—higher education saves people from abject poverty, abuse and uncertain futures through a community of challenge and care. Every university chronicles the impact of education on its alumni. Stories abound of individuals who had no hope or a place to go, but the university took them in. Imagine a time before welfare, when a woman drove her four children in a horse-drawn wagon across the state because her husband died and she had nothing, and she was told a small Methodist college might give her a job as a cook and educate her children for free. Those children went on to be teachers and entrepreneurs who served that institution as trustees and benefactors.

“Liberty”—to think and test out ideas and beliefs and develop ways in which one can view the world to oppose tyranny and arbitrary government is a central tenet of higher education. In nearly all college and university mission, vision and values statements, the importance of curiosity, lifelong learning, the public good and active citizenship is emphasized. When Hampshire College announced its closing on April 15, 2026, 1971 alumnus and celebrated filmmaker Ken Burns reflected, “Hampshire College is woven into the very fabric of who I am. It’s where I learned there is freedom in searching, and even failure. I learned to use the freedom to question everything, and ultimately find my voice as a storyteller in a way that would have been inconceivable at a conventional institution.”

“Pursuit of happiness”—higher education offers an array of avenues to pursue the topics that give the most joy, sense of autonomy, satisfaction and personal fulfillment. Not everyone wishes or needs to be an accountant, stockbroker, doctor or lawyer. Nor should they be if they don’t have the interest, disposition or ability. Numerous notable people have credited higher education with their success and happiness.

A part of the current sentiment regarding higher education is the claim that the only reason a person should get a degree is to make money, which is an affront to the country’s founding principles. And its assertion furthers subjugation. Today’s schism between education as a moral and democratic imperative and education as a means of profit for private interests is not as new as one might believe, dating back to the colonial era.

Part two of this essay explores higher education as a business.