ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the maintenance of status hierarchies among universities. The most powerful and prestigious universities in the world have preserved their advantageous positions since the 1970s, despite important transformations in their surrounding environment. American colleges have historically had a variety of mandates, from research-intensive institutions, to religious colleges, to liberal arts colleges, to historically black colleges, to large state colleges, and so on. The British university system is much older and smaller than the American system. In Canada, most universities are formally equal in the eyes of their provincial funders, academically oriented, and relatively undifferentiated. EMI processes are boosting the status of already-prestigious universities by directing to them larger flows of socially and academically prized students. Today's Anglo-American universities operate in a shifting environment. Politicians complain about their costs, faulting traditional universities for teaching too few students for too much money, and tout digital technologies for their potential to overhaul higher education.
