This paper explores the proposition that if American higher education has been broadly successful in serving its society, it is in large part because American colleges and universities, and the system of which they are part, were created under conditions of weakness, both academic and financial.

In recent years problems have emerged around the American system of accrediting colleges and universities - a peculiar system involving voluntary regional associations of colleges and universities, public and private, which appoint committees of academics to make visits to their member...