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"Higher Education in the American West offers the first comprehensive regional history of American higher education, examining the role of each state and subregion, and demonstrates the importance of understanding the American West's role in education nationally. It concentrates on the fifteen-state western region served by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education compact, stretching from North and South Dakota to Alaska, California, and Hawaii. Spanning the years 1818 to 2013, it narrates the ways in which state development and the establishment and growth of institutes of higher education have been intertwined. It tells how campus and state leaders advanced the West's 1,000 public and private institutions of higher learning through the rough founding pioneer days and later nineteenth-century land-grant service era to their communities and citizens, reaching contemporary acclaim as world-class research universities, despite the fiscal constraints of the current century. Twelve nationally recognized history scholars, higher education researchers, past system chancellors, current university presidents, and former federal government officials provide an engaging history of each state in the region and a comprehensive understanding of what has historically been the relationship between states and higher education in the American West. A must-read for anyone looking for an in-depth, clear, and comparative history, this volume makes clear not only the place of the American West in the history of education, but the place and value of education in the development of the American West. The companion volume, Public Policy Challenges Facing Higher Education in the American West, further explores seven current-day regional policy issues in the fifteen western states. "--