Abstract

Book Reviews Investment in Learning: The Individual and Social Value of American Higher Education, by Howard R. Bowen. A Report prepared with the support of the Sloan Foundation and issued by the Carnegie Council on Policy Studies in Higher Education San Francisco: Jossey-Bass 1977 xviii + 507 pp. $15.00 ARTHUR W. CHICKERING, Memphis State University There's a parlor game some of us have enjoyed playing in the past. You ask, "What one book on higher education would you recommend as required reading for all administrators, faculty members, students, parents, and legislators?" The fun was in the spirited debate, sharp differences, and varied perspectives such a question provoked. Unfortunately, Howard Bowen and his colleagues have now taken all the fun out of such games. In the future there simply will be no debate, because, like a pro basketball player, Investment in Learning is head and shoulders above the crowd. That extreme statement in no way minimizes the contributions of several major publications during the past twenty years. But none of them stands as tall in comprehensiveness, conceptual complexity, and balance. Bowen sticks close to the evidence, draws conservative conclusions, and resists sweeping generaliza­ tions. The stridency, breast-beating, and puffery that