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…

State policy leaders have an opportunity to take leadership in protecting students--and especially student veterans--from being targeted by predatory colleges. Given failings by the federal government to police for-profit colleges and to ensure basic rights for students to attend college without being defrauded, it now falls to the states to step…

For-profit colleges do not always recruit aggressively; nor do they always shortchange students. But the problem of colleges systematically overpromising and underdelivering, when it does happen, has largely been a for-profit phenomenon. The abuses have been the most widespread and most damaging when they have been fueled by government grants and…

This book tracks the dramatic outcomes of the federal government's growing involvement in higher education between World War I and the 1970s, and the conservative backlash against that involvement from the 1980s onward. Using cutting-edge analysis, Christopher Loss recovers higher education's central importance to the larger social and political…

In 1946-47 colleges and universities across the nation witnessed an influx of World War II veterans. This was primarily due to the 1944 "G.I. Bill of Rights." This bill allowed any veteran to attend a higher educational institution of his choice with all financial burdens taken care of by the Federal government. As the original bill was…

Perhaps the only form of financial support that cannot be found among more than 400 separate federal legislative provisions bearing on higher education is unrestricted support for such learning, suggests the author. Historical reasons are discussed and specific types of aid programs are described. (LBH)

The problem with the G. I. Bill is that some veterans enroll in school, start collecting their monthly stipends, do not attend classes but keep on collecting. The Veterans Administration is trying to protect federal funds and is trying to stop the cheating, but it may not be doing the right thing. The real problem is seen to be more complex,…

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)