Wi n t e r 2 0 1 4 — c a r n e g i e r e p o r t e r 59 by Henry Rosovsky, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Emeritus, Editor’s Note: These remarks were prepared for the Carnegie Corporation/TIME Summit on Higher Education, September 20, 2013. RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES: R I. A Paradox Domestically, American higher ed ucation is the subject of almost unprec edented criticism. “Too expensive and inefficient and not a good investment” is a common conclusion. Students are said to be unprepared for the job mar ket. Higher education is accused of being too permissive in tolerating low faculty productivity and in resisting the technological revolution. In general, the current “business model” is judged unsustainable: some think that we are riding on the road to self-destruction. The United States confronts great social and economic problems, yet—in Arthur Levine’s gloomy words—“public and opinion leaders alike view [universities] as more of a problem than a solution.”1 But in international discussions and evaluations of higher education, American universities are frequently called “the envy of the world.” Not by any means all our universities. Indeed not very many, but some—and that is my point. In the United States, it makes no sense to speak about “higher educa tion” or “universities” in general—yet it happens all the time. (The December 1, 2012, issue of The Economist pro vides a recent example. The headline announced: “Not what it used to be: American universities represent declin ing value for money to their students.” In the text there is little recognition of the tremendous diversity of higher education in the United States.) The label “American universities” has little meaning when our country is home to more than 4,000 tertiary institutions, ranging from those that might actually be the envy of the world to those barely distinguishable from high schools— with a tremendous variety in between. At the top of our highe