Term Paper on "Higher Education Act of 1965"

Term Paper 4 pages (1319 words) Sources: 3 Style: APA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Higher Education Act HEA) of 1965 was signed into law on November 8 of that year. Before this time, higher education was a luxury that could be afforded only by the rich and the privileged, hence mainly by the white upper-class population of the United States. President Johnson understood the need to provide lower and middle income families with the opportunity for higher education as well. This would not only serve an empowerment function for the beneficiaries of the Act, but would also be beneficial for the manpower and employment sectors of the country as a whole. By providing higher education to middle and lower income students, the country can make use of otherwise latent and lost talents in order to uplift both the community and the country itself. As such, the Act was particularly important for financing higher education since the 1940s.

The 1930s and 1940s saw a wide range of political movements and change. Tertiary education for example did not offer equal opportunities for further study. While women were successful in gaining the right to vote, Negroes were still heavily discriminated against in terms of education. In fact, they were given only a one-fifteenth portion of the education opportunity generally offered to American youngsters. The Great Depression however stimulated federal initiatives to help stimulate the economy (Cervantes et al., 2005).

The National Youth Administration for example provided needy students with the means to enroll in tertiary education institutions by helping them to obtain part-time jobs in clerical and maintenance work.. Lyndon B. Johnson, who would later become President, was the Texas director of the organization from 1935-1927. The importance of such help to promising academic students is emphasized by the outstanding nature of graduates helped in this way. Examples are Richard M. Nixon, Arthur Miller, and Jackie Robinson among others.

The 1940's were a significant time for the NYA, as emphasis necessarily became focused upon the war effort during World War II. General job creation made way for defense training. After the war, the effort changed focus again, to help war veterans reenter the job market. In 1942, the Government, then led by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, asked educators to investigate the matter of educating service men and women. Like Johnson during the 1960's, Roosevelt's aim was to maximize human resources, while specifically helping military personnel resume their civilian lives. The committee recommended several funding initiatives to help with this effort. After President Roosevelt's death, Harry Truman assumed office in 1945, during which he developed the President's Commission on Higher Education to investigate and advance the state of general higher education in the country. However, Truman soon recognized that the post-war status of the country was of greater concern and left the Committee's recommendations by the wayside to pay further attention to the education of war veterans reentering civilian life. The result was the "GI Bill" of 1944. This is significant, as it was the first true effort by the Government to provide financial aid to prospective students (Cervantes et al., 2005).

Another very significant consequence of both the War and the subsequent Bill was the empowerment of African-American students. Many African-Americans who were otherwise deprived of education were allowed into tertiary institutions under the GI Bill. In 1954, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded, which had further significant impacts upon the effort to empower and educate minority groups in the United States (Cervantes et al., 2005).

While a strong middle class was encouraged by the ability of war veterans to enter high-paying careers, there were still social problems in terms of higher education. African-American people were not legislatively discriminated against in entering tertiary education. Nevertheless, the social climate was still very much one of segregation and a lack of both funding and opportunity for such students (Graham, 2006). This was particularly the case in the South. African-American enrollment nonetheless expanded significantly and Medgar Evers for example completed his studies successfully… READ MORE

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