This book traces the development of a very small elite university system of the late 1940s to the mass higher education system of the 1990s through the critical writings of distinguished scholars and university figures, mostly British and American. It illustrates how change took place, or was frustrated, what opportunities were missed and what successes were achieved, and how policy debates sometimes did and sometimes did not have an impact on the processes of change. The book brings together a selection of articles published over the life of the Universities/Higher Education Quarterly, celebrating its Fiftieth Anniversary as the oldest higher education journal in the world. The articles highlight both the continuity of some policy dilemmas in higher education and the extent to which some could have been eliminated if government or other authorities had listened more carefully to alternative views. Contributors to the Quarterly commented on all the most important higher education issues of the day, including most notably the Robbins Report and the creation of the polytechnics, and the selection provides a critical overview of the development of university and higher education over the post-War period. The selection is preceded by an introduction which sets the articles into a historical context and which describes the policy issues which lie behind them.