Overview

A colorful history of US research universities, and a market-based theory of their global success. American education has its share of problems, but it excels in at least one area: university-based research. That's why American universities have produced more Nobel Prize winners than those of the next twenty-nine countries combined. Economist Miguel Urquiola argues that the principal source of this triumph is a free-market approach to higher education. Until the late nineteenth century, research at American universities was largely an afterthought, suffering for the same reason that it now prospers: the free market permits institutional self-rule. Most universities exploited that flexibility to provide what well-heeled families and church benefactors wanted. They taught denominationally appropriate materials and produced the next generation of regional elites, no matter the students'-or their instructors'-competence. These schools were nothing like the German universities that led the world in research and advanced training. The American system only began to shift when certain universities, free to change their business model, realized there was demand in the industrial economy for students who were taught by experts and sorted by talent rather than breeding. Cornell and Johns Hopkins led the way, followed by Harvard, Columbia, and a few dozen others that remain centers of research. By the 1920s the United States was well on its way to producing the best university research. Free markets are not the solution for all educational problems. Urquiola explains why they are less successful at the primary and secondary level, areas in which the United States often lags. But the entrepreneurial spirit has certainly been the key to American leadership in the research sector that is so crucial to economic success.

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Reviews

Charmingly written, instructive, and stimulating, Markets, Minds, and Money is a persuasive read about how the US higher education system evolved to become uniquely situated to lead the world in research. Economists will read it for the analytical core of the argument; others for the history of higher education. -- Michael McPherson, President Emeritus, The Spencer Foundation Miguel Urquiola is one of the most versatile minds in economics and a scholar who makes complicated concepts comprehensible thanks to his extraordinary clarity of thought and expression. In this volume, he deftly combines economic theory with historical analysis to compellingly argue how US universities came to rank so disproportionately at the top of the world, and where the future might take us. Like everything else Urquiola writes, this book is absolutely worth reading. -- David Figlio, Dean, School of Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University American research universities dominate the world's most preeminent institutions of higher learning. This is a result of their remarkable contributions to advances in knowledge and discoveries that have changed our lives and those of people around the world. In an important and engaging book, which is very accessible to a large audience, Miguel Urquiola shows how market forces examined over the past century have influenced the growth of excellence. The argument is lucid, provocative, well-documented, and a must-read for those interested in why American universities remain the envy of the world-and why their position of preeminence may be in danger. -- Jonathan R. Cole, John Mitchell Mason Professor of the University and Provost and Dean of Faculties, Emeritus, Columbia University

Charmingly written, instructive, and stimulating, Markets, Minds, and Money is a persuasive read about how the US higher education system evolved to become uniquely situated to lead the world in research. Economists will read it for the analytical core of the argument; others for the history of higher education. -Michael McPherson, President Emeritus, The Spencer Foundation Miguel Urquiola is one of the most versatile minds in economics and a scholar who makes complicated concepts comprehensible thanks to his extraordinary clarity of thought and expression. In this volume, he deftly combines economic theory with historical analysis to compellingly argue how US universities came to rank so disproportionately at the top of the world, and where the future might take us. Like everything else Urquiola writes, this book is absolutely worth reading. -David Figlio, Dean, School of Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University American research universities dominate the world's most preeminent institutions of higher learning. This is a result of their remarkable contributions to advances in knowledge and discoveries that have changed our lives and those of people around the world. In an important and engaging book, which is very accessible to a large audience, Miguel Urquiola shows how market forces examined over the past century have influenced the growth of excellence. The argument is lucid, provocative, well-documented, and a must-read for those interested in why American universities remain the envy of the world-and why their position of preeminence may be in danger. -Jonathan R. Cole, John Mitchell Mason Professor of the University and Provost and Dean of Faculties, Emeritus, Columbia University

Miguel Urquiola is one of the most versatile minds in economics and a scholar who makes complicated concepts comprehensible thanks to his extraordinary clarity of thought and expression. In this volume, he deftly combines economic theory with historical analysis to compellingly argue how US universities came to rank so disproportionately at the top of the world, and where the future might take us. Like everything else Urquiola writes, this book is absolutely worth reading.--David Figlio, Dean, School of Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University American research universities dominate the world's most preeminent institutions of higher learning. This is a result of their remarkable contributions to advances in knowledge and discoveries that have changed our lives and those of people around the world. In an important and engaging book, which is very accessible to a large audience, Miguel Urquiola shows how market forces examined over the past century have influenced the growth of excellence. The argument is lucid, provocative, well-documented, and a must-read for those interested in why American universities remain the envy of the world--and why their position of preeminence may be in danger.--Jonathan R. Cole, John Mitchell Mason Professor of the University and Provost and Dean of Faculties, Emeritus, Columbia University Charmingly written, instructive, and stimulating, Markets, Minds, and Money is a persuasive read about how the US higher education system evolved to become uniquely situated to lead the world in research. Economists will read it for the analytical core of the argument; others for the history of higher education.--Michael McPherson, President Emeritus, The Spencer Foundation

Author Information

Miguel Urquiola is Professor of Economics and International Affairs at Columbia University, where he chairs the Department of Economics. He is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a Fellow at the Bureau for Research in Development Economics.

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