This isn't one of my primary fields, but I have done some reading in the history of higher education as background for other projects. The most recent synthesis I've read is John R. Thelin A History of American Higher Education which is in its 2nd edition now (at least). It's pretty good, though like most American higher ed histories it really emphasizes the 19th century...I think only the last 2-3 chapters covered post-WWII developments. Arthur M. Cohen's The Shaping of American Higher Education: Emergence and Growth of the Contemporary System is in a second edition too.

The classic studies are Frederick Rudolph The American College and University, A History from the early 1960s, which also went through multiple editions, and John Brubacher and Willis Rudy's Higher Education in Transition: A History of American Colleges and Universities, 1636-1976. Depending on how far back you want to go in the literature, you might be interested in Richard Hofstadter's American Higher Education, A Documentary History as well.

There's only one journal I know of dedicated to the field, Perspectives on the History of Higher Education (used to be called The History of Higher Education Annual). Read the book reviews for the last five years and that should give you a solid idea of whom you may want to watch for recent scholarship. Their editorial board is probably worth looking into for articles.

If you take these as starting points and scour their notes/bibiliographies you should be able to find a lot of material to explore, especially Thelin and Cohen. Meanwhile, perhaps someone actually active in the field will chime in with a list of specific scholars to watch for. Unfortunately all the work I've done has been tangential to higher ed, so I've never needed to read much beyond these secondary studies.