To outward appearances, the American campus is a cauldron at perpetual boil. Student rebellion in the 1960s and '70s has been followed debates over multiculturalism and political correctness today. Yet what is most remarkable about higher education during the past half century are the constants: the growth of its scale, scope, and prestige, the steady expansion of academic specialization, the relentless escalation of tuition. Now, our authors warn, this era is drawing to a close. Even as the university tests the limits of its economic and intellectual resources, it seems to have lost sight of its central purposes.