Higher Education and Corporate Careers

American business has looked to higher education for over half a century for the training of its managers. Until the 1920s, few future managers would have sought a college education for entry into management. Although college degrees have long been the expected foundation for the medical and legal professions, it was not until this era that business turned to higher education for the socialization and preparation of its future leadership. The emergence of the large, multidivisional corporation, the rise of what business historian Alfred Chandler has termed the "visible hand," placed a premium on sophisticated decision making, increasingly recognized as a developed rather than intuitive skill. As the first generation of entrepreneurial founders was gradually losing its grip on the executive suite to a new generation of professionally trained managers, college came to be viewed as a major avenue of preparation. Once it was so defined, a rising flow of interest would be assured. David O. Levine, an historian of the era, writes: "There could be no greater incentive for the pursuit of higher learning than individual ambition."1