Guided Response: Respond to at least two of your classmates’ posts and point out ways that the collegiate ideal of this era is related to the collegiate ideal today.

Anna Johnson

In those times an undergraduate degree provided the education is to provide students with broad knowledge and prepare them to be engaged and informed citizens. For women obtaining a college degree meant you thought you were better than men. But the economical factor back then was as bad as it is now. But if you look at the price of tuition may people are going into debt just in order to get a higher education degree. back in those days tuition wasn’t as much as it is now. If you choose the school that are well known many people attend Harvard because of its name and just to say I went to that school. Compared to a student who attends an HBCU is because of the color of their skin. Some people choose colleges based on what they can get from them not because they want a good education. The cultural is very closed knit at HBCU schools because of the history that they are the oldest schools in the country and they admission is easier than the high prestigious schools. 

Amanda Baker

Summarize the concept of the “Collegiate Ideal” that arose between 1890 and 1920. Consider how the “college man” and/or “college woman” was becoming an imposing figure in American higher education at the end of the nineteenth century. How did this collegiate ideal help the undergraduate college population increase? Analyze the political, cultural, and economic factors that were beneficial and challenging to the stakeholders at higher education institutions.

The concept of the “Collegiate Ideal” is one that was crafted with a very specific individual in mind. It functioned unto the belief that an academic environment is created with the purpose to bring about a change in people. Colleges are not meant to merely inform, but stir something within the student to help them find their unique path in life. The idea that education shapes a “whole person” and not strictly the intellect of an individual. The “Collegiate Ideal” moved beyond strictly focusing on intellectual, religious and moral development of students and toward the idea that a student was more than the sum of these three parts. The ideas that emerged were rooted in physical, social, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual development. Colleges desired to shape a person into a functioning, contributing member of society capable of handling whatever came their way in the real world as they achieved their fullest potential.

 This period of academic enlightenment was one that could have been viewed as potentially problematic or threatening to individuals or institutions that prospered under older models. Students were being taught to be a more complete person that thought independently and challenged the information placed before them. This would really alter the behavior of students from learning to experiencing. It was an ideal that people could get behind and feel proud of. Students were immersed in their educational experience and really embraced the involvement theory. With this shift, colleges were far more enticing to people from all walks of life and students were able to start anew and be the person they dreamed of.

 Of course, catering to the “Collegiate Ideal” and the student that it produced required institutions to really step up. Faculty and student affairs professionals were required to really become far more educated on the type of student that was now on the campus. Considerably larger sums of funding needed to be dedicated to expanding programs, allowing baseline measures and assessments. They also needed to focus funds on attracting students through expanded libraries and staff with a higher academic pedigree. All of these efforts were important factors in the student choosing an institution in this age. Institutions also found ways to try to bring in a more diverse palette of students instead of simply segregating them and turning a blind eye, seeing that diverse pools of students increased the value of the institution itself.