There was a lot of talk about both the fate of American democracy and American higher education in 2021, but not much consideration about how the two were deeply intertwined. The 1947 report "Higher Education for American Democracy" showed awareness of how race, sex, class, and religious discrimination thwarted the talents and ambitions of citizens and immigrants to the detriment of the country's democratic potential. The report's authors argued that far more was at stake than the country's or individual citizens' economic well-being. The very health, vitality, and future of American democracy hinged on a well-funded, genuinely inclusive academy. The report was both representative and radical for its time. It openly recognized the expense of a college education, highlighted nationwide discriminatory admissions practices, demanded an end to legally segregated schooling, called for investment in (what would eventually be called) historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), insisted on federal funding for city and state campuses, and tied such support to equal opportunities to enroll. Those and other suggestions were meant to build and sustain a genuinely affordable, accessible mass higher education that the commissioners argued would make the Republic more democratic.