Rethinking Higher Education

American postsecondary education has immeasurably expanded economic opportunity, improved our quality of life, fostered advances in art and culture, and driven scientific and technological innovation. It is rightly the envy of the world. American colleges and universities have also served a noteworthy public good by preparing our nation’s leaders and cultivating thoughtful, productive citizens capable of informed debate, respectful disagreement, and community engagement.

The United States can stand proud of its accomplishment in significantly expanding the number and diversity of students who have sought and earned a college credential as a result of the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 (the G.I. Bill) and the Higher Education Act of 1965. Although educational elites expressed fears that the G.I. Bill would turn college campuses into “educational hobo jungles,” more than a million World War II veterans received education benefits provided through the G.I. Bill, and many credit this expansion of postsecondary opportunity with creating the burgeoning middle class and prosperity of the post-World War II era.