Text 5. Higher Education in the United States

The United States leads all industrial nations in the proportion of young men and women who receive higher education. Americans place a high value on higher education. This attitude goes back to the coun­try's oldest political traditions. People in the United States have always believed that education is necessary for maintaining a democratic gov­ernment. Besides, for some careers - law, medicine, education, and en­gineering - a college education is a necessary first step.

The system of higher education in the United States is complex. It comprises four categories of institutions: (1) the university which may contain several colleges for undergraduate students seeking a bachelor's (four-year) degree and one or more graduate schools for those seeking a master's or a doctoral degree; (2) the four-year undergraduate institution - the college - most of which are not part of a university; (3) the techni­cal training institution providing courses from six months to four years in duration and training students in a variety of skills, from hair styling through business accounting to computer programming; (4) and the two-year or community college from which students may enter many profes­sions or may transfer to four-year colleges or universities.

Depending on the source of its funding any of these institutions may be either public or private, there being no clear distinction in terms of quality of education offered. However this is not to say that all insti­tutions enjoy equal prestige or that there are no material differences among them. Both public and private colleges depend on three sources of income: student tuitions, endowments (gifts made by wealthy bene­factors) and government funding. Some endowments are very large: Harvard, Princeton, Yale Universities have more than a thousand mil­lion dollars each. Public institutions receive a larger portion of public-tax money than do private schools.

In an American university, each college and graduate school has its own curriculum. At the undergraduate level there may be some courses that a student has to take (e.g. classes in world history, math, writing or research). But students do select their "major" (the field in which they want their degree), plus a number of "electives"(courses that are not required but that students may choose). Typically, an under­graduate student has to earn a certain number of "credits" (about 120) in order to receive a degree at the end of four years of college. Credits are earned by attending lectures (or lab classes) and by successfully completing assignments and examinations.

There are many small American colleges - some with fewer than a hundred students. But the larger universities tend to keep attracting larger numbers of enrollments. At least seven large universities have total enrollments of over 100,000 each. One of the seven, the State Uni­versity of New York has more than 60 campuses in different parts of the state. Large universities offer the best libraries and facilities for scien­tific research. Access to a "mainframe"(very large) computer and to modern laboratories attracts leading scientists to the faculties of such schools. Research programs continue to be important to the reputation of America's universities.

Exercise 38. Match the entries of the left-hand column with their Ukrainian equivalents in the right-hand column:

place a high value можливості для досліджень

seek a degree доступ до комп’ютера

transfer to a university державні установи

source of funding високо цінувати

clear distinction перевестись до університету

student tuition здобувати ступінь

endowment джерело фінансування

benefactor приватні навчальні заклади

public institutions прийняття, внесення до списку

private institutions вклад, пожертва

access to a computer чітка відмінність

complete assignments плата за навчання

enrollment виконувати завдання

research facilities доброчинець. благодійник

Exercise 39. Distribute the following words according to the part of speech into separate groups; define their suffixes where possible; translate them.

Those, engineering, among, its, wealthy, and, contain, typically, from, oldest, this, benefactor, of, thousand, may, variety, enrollment, for, ac­cess, million, transfer, endowment, in, enjoy, equal, industrial, no, four, about, public, duration, source, be, institution, higher, successfully.

Exercise 40. Comment on:

a) why Americans place a high value on higher education;

b) why they try to learn in advance about entrance requirements and the degrees offered;

c) what the system of obligatory, major and elective courses means;

d) why they are interested if a college or a university is a public in­stitution or a private one;

e) why they try to get information about how large the school is;

f) why students seek the most respected universities.

Exercise 41. Give a heading to each paragraph of Text 5. Retell the text.

Exercise 42. Read the text and compare high education in UK and US. Put down the results into two columns.

HIGHER EDUCATION IN US

There is no national system of higher education in the United States. Instead, there are over 2,100 sepa­rate institutions ranging from two-year "junior" colleges to complex universities, and from technical institutes to classical liberal arts colleges. These institutions may be small or large, rural or urban, private or public, relig­ious or secular, highly selective or open to all.

Basically, however, American higher education devel­oped its own pattern by the adaptation of two tradi­tions: the collegiate tradition of England and the uni­versity tradition of the Continent Colleges.

The college course of study, at first three years in length, was soon extended to four years, and the classes are uniformly known as the freshman, the sophomore, the junior and the senior.

The degrees of Bachelor of Science (B.S.), Bache­lor of Philosophy (Ph.B.), and Bachelor of Letters (B.L.) are often conferred by colleges upon students who have pursued systematic courses of study which do not include Greek or the amount of Latin, required for the degree of Bachelor of Arts.

The methods of instruction in the universities are the lecture, discussion and work in laboratory or semi­nary – the latter transplanted from the German univer­sities. The degree of Master of Arts is conferred upon students who, after one year of university residence and study, pass certain prescribed examinations.

The academic year is usually of nine months dura­tion, or two semesters of four and a half months each. Classes usually begin in September and end in June. Of course, there are many variations on this, with summer sessions offered in almost all major insti­tutions.

During one term or semester, a student will study, concurrently, four or five different subjects. The stu­dents' progress is often evaluated through quizzes (short oral or written tests), term papers, and a final examination in each course. Each part of a student's work in a course is given a mark which helps to de­termine his final grade. A student's record consists of his grade in each course. This system is unlike that of most European countries.

College grades, determined by each instructor on the basis of class work and examinations, are usually on a five point scale, with letters to indicate the levels of achievement. "A" is the highest mark, indicating supe­rior accomplishment, and the letters go through B, C, D, to E or F, which denotes failure.

Much instruction is provided by the lecture method. In some colleges, lecture groups might be as small as 15 or 20 students. In others, such as large state uni­versities, lecture groups might comprise 500 students. However, in the latter case, these groups are usually divided into smaller sections (15 to 30 students), which meet with an instructor or teaching assistant to discuss the lecture material and assigned readings, and to an­swer questions.