The GI Bill is seen as the most revolutionary and radically empowering federal legislation to affect American higher education in the 20th century. The bill gave African American veterans more access to higher education than ever before, at government expense, and helped improve the quality of education at black colleges. (MSE)

The three great federal policy initiatives concerning higher education, the land-grant movement of the 1860s, the World War II-era decision to rely on universities for basic and applied research, and the GI Bill of 1944, have affected development of the American system of higher education more than any others. (MSE)