Colleges and universities play an important role in training a skilled workforce and generating knowledge for society, but we know little about exactly how universities choose the skills and knowledge they provide to students. In my dissertation, I introduce novel data that allow me to document new facts about the supply of courses at a large sample of US universities. The analysis in these papers highlights a tension between students, who appear relatively responsive to changing conditions in the labor market, and to social and political issues more broadly, and universities, which respond gradually to shifts in student demand. The first chapter of this dissertation examines how universities adjust the supply of courses to meet students' changing demand for skills and knowledge. I consider two forms of supply adjustments: universities can meet student demand by adjusting the number of courses they offer (the extensive margin) and by adjusting the content of existing courses (the intensive margin). I show that while students' preferences for courses are relatively dynamic, course supply adjusts gradually along both of these margins. On the extensive margin, I estimate the elasticity of the number of courses a field offers with respect to students' demand for courses in that field. I show that universities are inelastic on this margin; a department the size of Stanford's Economics department is able to offer a new course when demand for Economics courses grows by approximately 235 seats. On the intensive margin, I show that course offerings are highly stable over time. The content of college courses has shifted modestly over the last 20 years, with newly added courses increasingly emphasizing topics related to social justice and job relevance.The second chapter of this dissertation studies the mechanisms that contribute to inelasticity in course supply. I outline a stylized model of the university that highlights some of the distinguishing features of universities relative to the standard firms whose behavior economists study. I use the insights from this framework to develop hypotheses for the sources of inelasticity within the university. The empirical analysis lends support to what I call the "institutional rigidities" hypothesis, which highlights the potential for institutional stakeholders (e.g., tenured faculty or boards of governors) to slow the university's adjustment to changing demand. In particular, I find that course supply is more inelastic at public universities compared to private universities. Universities with a high share of tenured faculty are more inelastic when demand for a field is decreasing but are actually more elastic when demand for a field is increasing, possibly because job security reduces the risk that an instructor's investment in creating a new course will have only limited scope for return. Central to the first two chapters of this dissertation, and one of the primary contributions of my research, is the construction of a novel "course catalog" dataset that contains detailed information on course offerings, enrollment, and content at a large and nationally representative sample of US colleges and universities. This dataset provides a unique look inside the black box of higher education instruction. The data allow me to look beyond major completions to observe how students and universities adjust the specific skills that are demanded/supplied and how fields of study evolve with changing social, economic, and technological conditions. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]