The social contract of public universities--the progressive idea that any citizen who meets specified academic conditions can gain entry to their state university--has profoundly shaped American society. This book offers the first comprehensive examination of admission policies and practices at public universities. Using the University of California, the nation's largest public research university and among its most selective, as an illuminating case study, it explores historical and contemporary debates over affirmative action, gender, class, standardized testing, and the growing influences of privatization and globalization, and indeed the very purpose and future of these important public institutions.
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John Aubrey Douglass is Senior Research Fellow for Public Policy and Higher Education at the Center for Studies in Higher Education, University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of The California Idea and American Higher Education (Stanford, 2000).