Podcast Summary

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Rome (New Books in Education)
Guest: Professor Ethan W. Ris (University of Nevada, Reno)
Book: Other People's Colleges: The Origins of American Higher Education Reform (University of Chicago Press, 2022)
Date: November 17, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode features Professor Ethan W. Ris discussing his book "Other People's Colleges," which unpacks the origins and enduring influence of philanthropy-driven reforms in American higher education during the early 20th century. The conversation traces how powerful foundations, namely those established by Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, funded efforts to systematize, rationalize, and centralize American higher education, often with exclusionary and hierarchical consequences. The episode delves into the motivations behind these reforms, their successes and failures, resistance to them, and the ongoing legacy for both higher education and philanthropy today.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Ethan Ris’s Academic Background and Book Genesis

• Ethan Ris is a historian of higher education, blending historical and educational expertise.
• The book’s inspiration: While at Stanford, Ris noticed that reform discourses around K-12 often came from leaders at research universities and powerful external actors; he found a gap in the literature on how these actors focused on higher education reform.
• Early 20th-century philanthropy—especially via the Carnegie Foundation and Rockefeller’s General Education Board—set out to reshape higher education with permanent funding and organizational models.
• Notable quote:
  "When really, really rich guys like that start putting money into a cause, we should probably pay attention."
  —Ethan Ris [04:02]

2. Broader Context: The Ethos of Reform

• In the Progressive Era, public policy toward higher education was synonymous with reform—how to modernize, rationalize, and increase efficiency in colleges and universities.
• This ethos stands in contrast to mid-20th-century focuses on expansion and access; today, the push for 'efficiency' and 'accountability' echoes the progressive reformers’ agenda.
• Notable quote:
  "There’s really a consensus across businesses, government officials, foundations, and political partisans from both the right and the left that higher education...must become more efficient, more accountable, and more useful both to students and to American society."
  —Ethan Ris [08:36]

3. The 'Academic Engineers' and Their Vision

The “Academic Engineers”:

• Elite academic reformers, often associated with major foundations.
• Modeled higher education reform after engineering principles: efficiency, systematization, and hierarchy.
• Wanted a national system with an apex ‘flagship’ university in each state (or nationwide), stratification among institutions, and centralization.
• Terms like “efficiency” and “system” were borrowed (sometimes inappropriately) from engineering.
• Notable quote:
  "They revered engineering as a discipline...But the trouble came when they started borrowing ideas from engineering and applying them to humanity."
  —Ethan Ris [15:29]

4. Philanthropic Involvement: Motivations of Carnegie and Rockefeller

• Though neither industrialist had attended college, both saw universities as vehicles for national modernity.
• They distrusted the free market in business and preferred consolidation and vertical integration; this translated into a desire for centralization in education.
• Their funding of the Carnegie Foundation and General Education Board backed academic engineers seeking systematic, hierarchical reform of higher ed.
• Notable quote:
  "Their whole scheme with industrial trust was consolidation and then vertical integration. [...] When folks came to them with these plans to say, 'You did such a good job making the business sector efficient and systematized. Let's do that to colleges and universities...' They bought what the academic engineers were selling."
  —Ethan Ris [23:24]

5. Targets for Reform & Exclusion

• The reformers had a narrow vision:
  • Too many colleges (“inefficient duplication”), especially small denominational, women's, and Black colleges.
  • Sought to reduce the number of degree-granting institutions—some proposed as few as 100 in the country.
  • Pushed for elite focus: only the “best” schools awarded full degrees; others should become “junior colleges” or focus on vocational/teacher training.
• Intended to marginalize (or close) “inefficient” colleges, especially those serving Black students, women, immigrants, and religious denominations.
• Ohio case: Urged the state to cut out two of its three public universities, focusing all resources on Ohio State as the single apex institution.

6. Achievements and Legacies

• Partial success:
  • Structural: Institutionalization of the “flagship” public university model and the community/junior college as a tiered access point (though not always how reformers intended).
    • The “junior college” was originally conceptualized as a downgrade for lesser four-year schools; it became the modern community college, now educating 40% of U.S. undergraduates.
  • Ideological: Enduring focus on efficiency, accountability, and relentless reform—especially toward institutions outside the elite.
  • Language and concepts (“system,” “flagship,” stratification) persist powerfully today.
• Notable quote:
  "We still hear about efficiency, we still hear about accountability. Those things were established by the academic engineers and they never really went away... We're still talking about other people's colleges, not the colleges of the elites."
  —Ethan Ris [38:23]

7. Exclusionary and Hierarchical Outcomes

• Academic engineers’ reforms adversely affected women, people of color, and immigrants by seeking to restrict their access to bachelor's degrees and elite institutions.
  • Women and people of color were steered into ‘junior colleges’, vocational/“normal” schools, industrial institutes rather than traditional liberal arts or research universities.
  • The vision was explicitly elitist and tied to prevailing racist, sexist, and nativist attitudes.
• Notable quote:
  "To be very clear, these academic engineers were total bigots. They were prejudiced against immigrants, newcomers... They were incredibly racist... and they were terribly sexist towards women."
  —Ethan Ris [39:48]

8. Resistance and the 'Toolbox' of Opposition

• Widespread, multi-faceted resistance emerged:
  • Small colleges, state governments, religious leaders, and journalists objected to external control.
  • Emphasis on 'local control' vs. ‘distant, unelected foundations.’
  • Formal organizations were established to push back:
    • AAUP (American Association of University Professors, 1915) initially focused on fighting foundation interference.
    • AAC (now AAC&U) formed to protect small colleges.
    • ACE (American Council on Education, 1918) eventually created an umbrella where all stakeholders could participate in policy.
  • Notable moment:
    "We must hang together or we will all hang separately."
    —AAC founding speaker, quoted by Ethan Ris [51:32]

9. Legacy for the Study of Philanthropy

• The Carnegie and Rockefeller foundations were the world’s first “perpetual foundations” with a long-term agenda—primarily to reshape higher education, not merely to provide charity.
• Philanthropy has always had strings attached and pursued elite-driven goals.
  • Today’s philanthropic efforts (Gates, Lumina, etc.) continue to focus on efficiency, accountability, and often on sub-baccalaureate or alternative credentials.
• Notable quote:
  "We fantasize maybe there was a period when philanthropists were just really generous and just wanted to help people. No, organized philanthropy has always had an agenda. It's always had strings attached."
  —Ethan Ris [55:27]

10. Relevance to Contemporary Higher Education

• The pressure for efficiency and accountability in American higher education persists.
• Calls for reform now also come from right-wing political actors seeking to limit teaching on race, gender, and identity.
• Ris argues for learning from history: coalition-building, leveraging local allies, and organizing (the “toolbox”) remain powerful defenses.
• Notable quote:
  "I talk a lot in the book about the toolbox of resistance... that colleges and universities developed in the 1920s and 30s to battle the academic engineers. But I think that toolbox is still very much in play."
  —Ethan Ris [59:00]

11. Forthcoming Work

• Ris’s next project will explore the post-WWII “golden age” when college was seen as a solution to social problems, not itself “the problem.”
• Working title: When College Was the Solution—contrasting mid-20th-century optimism about higher ed with the present era of skepticism and austerity.
• Notable quote:
  "My argument is that in the 40s, 50s and 60s, all sorts of folks... created a narrative that higher education could solve social problems. It wasn't the problem itself; it was a solution."
  —Ethan Ris [62:30]

Memorable Quotes

• "When really, really rich guys like that start putting money into a cause, we should probably pay attention." —Ethan Ris [04:02]
• "They revered engineering as a discipline... But the trouble came when they started borrowing ideas from engineering and applying them to humanity." —Ethan Ris [15:29]
• "Their whole scheme with industrial trust was consolidation and then vertical integration... Let's do that to colleges and universities..." —Ethan Ris [23:24]
• "To be very clear, these academic engineers were total bigots." —Ethan Ris [39:48]
• "We must hang together or we will all hang separately." —AAC affiliated speaker, quoted by Ethan Ris [51:32]
• "Organized philanthropy has always had an agenda. It's always had strings attached." —Ethan Ris [55:27]
• "In the 40s, 50s and 60s... higher education could solve social problems. It wasn't the problem itself; it was a solution." —Ethan Ris [62:30]

Key Timestamps

• [02:12–04:23] Ris’s academic and research background
• [04:31–07:39] Book genesis and discovery of philanthropic involvement
• [08:17–09:52] Context: Ethos of reform and public policy
• [11:01–15:04] Progressive Era ideals; “academic engineers”
• [15:24–20:39] The engineering metaphor and its impact
• [20:39–25:58] The appeal of reform to Carnegie/Rockefeller
• [26:36–31:15] Targeting “excess institutions” and exclusion
• [32:13–39:16] Achievements and ideological impact; community colleges
• [39:16–45:11] Exclusionary impacts on women and minorities
• [45:54–52:22] Forms of resistance and new associations
• [54:05–61:08] Lessons for philanthropy and continuity in reform
• [61:41–65:17] Ris’s next project and book
• [65:33] Closing remarks

Summary Takeaways

• Early 20th-century education reform, driven by wealthy philanthropists and academic elites, had lasting structural and ideological impacts—defining much of the stratification, language, and ethos of efficiency that still dominates higher education discourse today.
• These reforms were intended to consolidate power and restrict access at the expense of marginalized groups.
• Widespread resistance, both informal and organizational, pushed back and shaped the evolution of the American higher education landscape.
• Philanthropy’s involvement was always political and self-interested; understanding these origins helps us critique current policies and philanthropic activity more robustly.
• Today’s debates about efficiency, accountability, and access reflect the paradoxes and legacies of these early reforms, making the history deeply relevant.

For more insights, stories, and nuance, see Ethan Ris’s book, Other People’s Colleges: The Origins of American Higher Education Reform.