The International Comparative Study of Higher Education: Lessons from the Contemplation of How Others Might See Us

Federalism, or The Absence of a National Ministry Few features are more difficult to explain to the foreign observer than the absence of an American ministry of education. Not only do virtually all other countries have one, but in the absence of a federal ministry it is difficult, for example, to account for why degrees are considered essentially the same in all 50 states, or why the federal government can be relatively assured that its financial support is buying about the same thing across states. The United States does have something called a Department of Education and a cabinet-level officer who appears to be some kind of “minister.” But we do not have a national ministry of education, much less of higher education—not, at least, one with any of the powers and responsibilities associated with that term elsewhere in the world. Our federal government, while immensely important to the funding of students and the support of research, has nothing to do with standards for entry, admission of students, requirements for degrees, qualifications of faculty or their terms and conditions of employment, selection of governing boards or chief executive officers, or anything else about how institutions, public or private, are governed and run. To the observer from another country, American higher education can appear