American society has been and is beset by contradictions and the best that can be said for it is that it has manifested good intentions and poor performance. Merit and money, education and success - in short, all the keys to advancement in American society until recently - have been closely guarded from those citizens who lacked the proper credentials of race and ethnic background. Though we are moving toward a more equal society in the 1970's, it is a period of conflict and tension. In addition, many of what seemed to be essential truths 20 or 30 years ago are now regarded as platitudes, such as the belief in integration, which has been replaced by the desire for pluralism. These changes in outlook have profoundly affected higher education, with students wanting the universities to be small scale replicas of a new egalitarian and pluralistic society. With pressures also increasing from other parts of society, higher education is in a state of almost constant turmoil. One of the great concerns in the period ahead is thought to be the conflict between equality and excellence; yet these two are not necessarily antithetical. The real problem will be to change our testing methods and selection mechanisms so that these will not be discriminatory, and also to create diverse pathways to obtaining academic degrees. (AF)