This study centered on the content analysis of articles in journals of higher education as a means of obtaining an opinion leader perspective on the development of colleges and universities over the past twenty years. Journals used in the study were selected based on results obtained from a questionnaire sent to board members of the American Association of Community and Junior Colleges, the Association of American Colleges, and the American Association for Higher Education. Content analysis was then conducted on all the articles appearing in these journals over the past twenty years. Trends based on changes in the proportion of column inches devoted to topics featured in these articles formed the basis for inferences about changing levels of interest in the most important factors influencing the colleges and universities of that period.

Findings of this study suggested the past twenty years as a period of increased competition and rising government control when primary topics of concern included government funding and influence, student welfare and access, institutional survival and autonomy, and curricular cohesion and comprehensiveness. Within the curriculum the early seventies marked a focus on innovation and specialization challenged during the next ten years by a renewed interest in liberal arts. Within the institution, concern for student welfare, administration/governance, and mission development received competition from growing concern about funding, institutional autonomy and student access. Therefore this study revealed the past twenty years as a time when increasing concern about survival and autonomy somewhat eroded the focus on these important functions within the institutional.