The Impact of the Economic Crisis on Higher Education - Research Paper Example

The community colleges, comprehensive colleges, and universities likewise evolved into their present shape and statuses and became the vehicles for the education of millions of American students. The student population in higher education grew around this time and higher education became popular in gaining public support and prestige. This expansion entailed opening of college and university doors to students coming from economic classes other than the middle class as well as to women and minority groups.

This emerging diversity in higher education population compelled the establishment of remedial courses geared to accommodate those ill-prepared for postsecondary education (Forest & Kinser xv-xvi). The advent of the WWII made an impact on higher education in the country. Although a sprinkling of legislative acts on education was passed prior to the War, they did not make such an impact on higher education as overall government education policies did during and after the War. The government and the military entered into extensive agreements with higher education institutions for the education of military personnel to the extent that by the end of the War, income received by many of these higher educational institutions from the federal government constituted half of their entire revenues.

The end of WWII however, did not have a parallel effect of the federal government involvement on the financial aspect of higher education institutions as three laws were passed ensuring a steady stream of government money into them: the GI Bill; the Surplus Property Act of 1944, and; the College Housing Loan Program. The GI Bill was passed to reward soldiers for their participation in the war and as a way of easing them back into the civilian mainstream by allowing them to take up college studies.

The Surplus Property Act, on the other hand, was meant to assist colleges and universities in coping with the flood of new students, mostly soldiers, by giving them discounts in the purchase, or outright donations, of equipment and supplies.