Funding the Future by Bernstein Alison R.;

Author:Bernstein, Alison R.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: R&L Education
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

The Postwar Years: New Demands on Higher Education

As millions of servicemen and women returned to civilian life immediately following World War II, higher education institutions were challenged to meet increasing demand for college and university degrees. The G.I. Bill, known officially as the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, passed in 1944, put the spotlight on the value of getting a college education as a route to upward mobility for individuals and families. It was designed to ease the adjustment of veterans to civilian life and avert massive unemployment.

Dwarfing the assets of all philanthropies in the scope of its funding and impact, this piece of legislation committed the federal government to subsidize tuition, fees, books, and even living expenses for veterans, who could choose any college or university they wished as long as they met admissions requirements. As Cole has written, “Because of these incentives, the act had greater impact than any other government educational program in history.”[19] Approximately eight million veterans received benefits over seven years following the passage of the act, thus nearly doubling the number of students enrolled from the late 1930s to the early 1950s.

The G.I. Bill produced a dramatic increase in the demand for higher learning. A college education was no longer an opportunity reserved for elites, and therefore it changed the higher education landscape by opening up higher learning to a more diverse group of men and, eventually, women. It also changed the funding landscape as foundations, which had previously been the most important external agency, had to face the fact that they weren’t able to set directions in ways they previously had.

Philanthropic funds were now vastly superseded by the federal government. Through the G.I. Bill, the expansion of the National Institutes of Health in 1947, and the creation of the National Science Foundation in 1950, the federal government was having a transformative impact on the sector as a whole. Federal legislation and, increasingly, states were taking a new role in shaping higher education policy. Given this changing situation, it became vitally important for philanthropy to try to influence public policy and, thus, governmental funding at the national and state levels. But according to foundation leaders, it wasn’t just the government that needed to be influenced in terms of setting new directions for higher education.

Philanthropy also saw its role as convincing higher education leaders to see the opportunities afforded by the increased demands for universal access that the G.I. Bill had unleashed. One of the first postwar philanthropic efforts to influence both federal policy and the higher education system was the creation of a national commission housed at the American Council on Education (ACE). In July 1946 President Harry Truman asked the head of ACE, George F. Zook, to chair the President’s Commission on Higher Education for Democracy.

Zook was no stranger to the influence philanthropic commissions could wield. A midwesterner, Zook had been president of the University of Akron, in Ohio, and had been instrumental in developing new, more flexible approaches to the external accreditation of colleges and universities.

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