During the 1920s and 1930s Rutgers University restricted the number of Jewish students it admitted, a practice common at that time. This covert policy was resisted by the Jewish community, which pointed to the university's support by public funds. Despite having evolved from a small college to a university by means of public funds, Rutgers was still governed by private trustees. In the 1920s and 1930s these trustees continued to exercise virtually autonomous control, even though Rutgers was accepting increasing amounts of public money. But the state of New Jersey was beginning to challenge this exclusive control. This challenge and the related issue of funding forced Rutgers authorities to participate in an internal struggle over the nature, identity, and role of the institution. The history of Rutgers during these two decades illuminates the connection between the anti-Semitic admissions policy and the debate over the university's role. It was not until after the Second World War—when Rutgers became the true State University of New Jersey—that discriminatory admissions policies were ended and the question of the university's role was settled.

On 4 October 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the world's first satellite, into orbit. In the weeks that followed, Americans questioned why the Soviet Union, a country with only a fraction of the material prosperity of the United States, was able to surpass the world's wealthiest and most powerful nation in the race to outer space. In the minds of many university scholars and members of the public alike, the fault seemed to lie with a flabby American high school curriculum that was no match for the Soviet Union's merciless regimen of math and science for its brightest students. Quickly, the race to beat the Soviets in space became a race to outdo them in the classroom as well, with many educators and university scientists seeing physics as needing the most sweeping overhaul among all subjects within the high school curriculum, in order for America to produce the scientists and engineers needed to compete with the Soviets.

Age-specific patterns today help shape social roles for United States citizens. People living in this country generally attend school by age six, have their first jobs by their early twenties, and retire from full-time work by age seventy or seventy-five. These experiences create, and, in turn, reflect, expectations about the timing and progression of human experiences. People who fail to meet these expectations, or norms, often encounter unwanted advice, bewilderment, or outright hostility. One example of this set of expectations is related to dropping out of school. Those without high school degrees today face a severe disadvantage when they apply for jobs. Even the most menial positions require a high school diploma. Those without degrees are essentially left without desirable economic options.

Burton Bledstein classed his book The Culture of Professionalism with the work of the giants in American academic history. He suggested that his theory of the culture of professionalism ranked in significance with Frederick Jackson Turner's frontier thesis, Charles A. Beard's industrialization theories, and Perry Miller's analysis of Puritanism. Bledstein's fresh historical perspective on higher education and his skepticism regarding professional authority no doubt were shaped by his experiences at elite public and private institutions, the University of California at Los Angeles (B.A., 1959) and Princeton (Ph.D., 1967). He has spent his whole professional life at one public institution, the University of Illinois at Chicago, with brief interludes provided by fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities (1972–73) and the University of Chicago (1977–78), the latter in recognition of his book.