As the commercialization of American higher education accelerates, more and more students are coming to college with the aim of obtaining a preprofessional credential. In arguing for what a true college education should be, the author shows why making it available to as many young people as possible remains central to America's democratic promise.

Delbanco explains how the idea of college arose in the colonial period from the Puritan idea of the gathered church, how it struggled to survive in the nineteenth century in the shadow of the new research universities, and how, in the twentieth century, it slowly opened its doors to women, minorities, and students from low-income families. He describes the unique strengths of America's colleges in our era of globalization and, while recognizing the growing centrality of science, technology, and vocational subjects in the curriculum, he mounts a vigorous defense of a broadly humanistic education for all. --from publisher description.