Undergraduate education in different postsecondary sectors is discussed in four articles on community colleges, state colleges, liberal arts colleges, and research universities. For each type of college, consideration is given to its history; value system; physical, financial, and human resources; and internal and external factors affecting excellence. In "The Community College in the American Educational System," Arthur M. Cohen considers transfer education and different missions of the college (i.e., graded education and quasi-educative services). Robert Birnbaum's paper, "State Colleges: An Unsettled Quality," argues that identity is a key issue for state colleges as they struggle to balance their role as "agencies of the state" and their commitment to academic values. The situation of the liberal arts college, which is no longer preeminent, is discussed by Allan O. Pfnister in "The American Liberal Arts College in the Eighties: Dinosaur or Phoenix?" According to Pfnister, shifting funding patterns will be especially hard on tuition-dependent small liberal arts colleges. In "Research Universities: Their Role in Undergraduate Education," Roger L. Geiger stresses the competition among the research universities and identifies three elements that distinguish research universities from other types of institutions. (SW)