Ethan W. Ris, "Other People's Colleges: The Origins of American Higher Education Reform" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

The University of Chicago Press Podcast · Nov 17, 2025 · 1h 7m

For well over one hundred years, people have been attempting to make American colleges and universities more efficient and more accountable. Indeed, Ethan Ris argues in Other People's Colleges: The Origins of American Higher Education Reform (U Chicago Press, 2022), the reform impulse is baked into American higher education, the result of generations of elite reformers who have called for sweeping changes in the sector and raised existential questions about its sustainability. When that reform is beneficial, offering major rewards for minor changes, colleges and universities know how to…