Higher Education Divided: National Expectations and the Bifurcation of Purpose and National Identity, 1946-2016 [1st ed.] 9783030507459, 9783030507466

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Higher Education Divided National Expectations and the Bifurcation of Purpose and National Identity, 1946–2016 Allison L. Palmadessa

Higher Education Divided

Allison L. Palmadessa

Higher Education Divided National Expectations and the Bifurcation of Purpose and National Identity, 1946–2016

Allison L. Palmadessa History Department Greensboro College Greensboro, NC, USA

ISBN 978-3-030-50745-9    ISBN 978-3-030-50746-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50746-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the ­publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and ­institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Dedicated to my family— Matthew, Audrey, Sabrina, Natalie, and Matthew, Jr.

Preface

The purpose of higher education in the United States, from the Colonial Era to present-day, has ultimately been defined as a means to educate the public, to produce knowledge to be shared with the public, and to reinforce the democratic ideals the nation was founded upon. Although this purpose has not completely changed, the interpretation of this purpose has been manipulated over the course of US history. Democracy is still the ideal and the United States is still thriving and basking in the glory of the success of the great American experiment. However, the ideal and the reality are not congruent. American society is still sharply divided across class lines, and higher education’s tertiary institutions are a reflection of deeply rooted socio-economic classes that reveal inequality in the United States. Tertiary institutions of higher education do have varied purposes with the ultimate goal still being reinforcing democratic idealism. This is a noble goal, and each college and university serves this call to the best of institutional capability. The challenge that arises is in the varied experience of members of the classist socio-economic structure in American society— members of each socio-economic class experience democratic idealism differently, and thus understand American national identity based on their status, and are limited to the appropriate institution type for educational attainment, the key to the American Dream. Ultimately, in 2020, institutions of higher education are challenged to educate more of the nation’s youth and are charged to not only support the nation-state as superior to others, but it is also expected to fill the gaps where the national system has failed—socially, politically, and vii

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economically. This is an incredible burden on a social institution that lacks federal support and proper funding. Yet, this is the reality for higher education in the twenty-first century. In this daunting reality with seemingly insurmountable charges, there is opportunity. Higher education has an opportunity to turn its attention to the people of the United States, to focus on the self-imposed duties to increase access, teach to engage, to create to support all members of society, and to keep the democratic purpose not only alive but bring the full breadth and depth of American society into the folds of the American ideal. It is our duty as researchers, practitioners, policy-makers, and faculty to do our part to support our home institutions in challenging powers that seek to further bifurcate institutions, their graduates, and thus, society. It is important to note that this work was completed during the Spring of 2020, in the context of the COVID-19 global pandemic. The pandemic has created a very difficult situation—from loss of life, public health challenges, economic decline, fear of infections, inability to maintain jobs, and divisive politics. The United States is in uncharted territory and it will take all of the strength and might of the foundational institutions to support and bring the nation out of this tragedy. Higher education has already delved into the crisis head-on. This has been either on a national scale through research and medical service, creation of protective measures, and on state, local, and individual levels by simply responding as necessary to the crisis as it unfolded. Students were evacuated from campuses for their safety and classes transitioned to non-traditional means of delivery. The challenge ahead for higher education cannot be ascertained at this moment; however, it is safe to surmise that institutions of higher education will have to adapt to serve students, to continue to meet national needs, and to support their communities. With an unknown end to the pandemic, institutions may have to continue to adapt teaching and learning strategies, and curricula will certainly be revised to include an attempt to understand the implications of the pandemic. What all of this will look like for colleges and universities is unknown. It is an uncertain future, complicated by profound economic challenges resulting from the pandemic. Higher education is one of the nation’s most prized institutions. Colleges and universities have adapted and supported the nation through Revolution, Civil War, industrialization, political corruption and upheaval, the 1918 pandemic, two World Wars, the Depression, the Cold War, the Space Race, the Civil Rights Movement, the Women’s Movement, medical innovations, technological advances, multiple armed conflicts in the

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Middle East, terrorism, and many, many other formidable opponents. Higher education will undoubtedly be expected to help the United States, its democratic ideal, and its people restore the nation to its prosperous position. There are still many factors that will influence what role higher education can fulfill—the pandemic is not over, there is a presidential election in a few months, and job loss continues—but as in the past, American colleges and universities will meet the needs of the public it is contractually obligated to serve. Greensboro, NC, USA

Allison L. Palmadessa

Acknowledgments

I want to first thank my family for their un-ending support—my husband Matthew, daughters Audrey, Sabrina, and Natalie, and son, Matthew, Jr.—I could not do this work without your understanding and toleration of my many hours at my desk. My husband and daughters have supported me through this process before; little Matthew, you came along in the middle of this project and have served as additional inspiration for mommy to continue her work. You all are so patient; I could not do this work without you and I love you all so much more than you will ever know. Thank you for being such an amazing family. I should also thank our family dog, Sinatra, for staying up with me and keeping me company on long writing nights. This work is a follow-up to a project I put on hold six years ago; I appreciate the support and guidance in learning the methods and understanding the importance of this type of work that my doctoral advisor, Dr. David Ayers, taught me. I am also grateful to the dedicated work of my research interns, Sofia Sedergren-Booker and Melanie Smith, who helped sift through and organize this data set of 1793 texts. Thank you also to Milana Vernikova and Linda Braus of Palgrave Macmillan and the editorial team—I appreciate your patience and willingness to work with me to complete this manuscript.

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Contents

1 Introduction: Establishing National Identity and the Purpose of Higher Education in the United States  1 2 Preserving and Promoting Democracy: University Demands and the Importance of the Community College in Post-War America, 1946–1953 37 3 Dualities and Challenges: Higher Education in the Heart of the Cold War, 1953–1969 53 4 Servicing the Public and the Marketplace for National Growth, 1970–1989 73 5 Capital Gains and Higher Education: The Entrepreneurial University and the Community College as Facilitator of American Social Mobility in the 1990s 95 6 Human Capital and Market Commodities: Higher Education’s Role in the Twenty-First Century113

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7 Higher Education in the Era of Trump: Considering the Ambiguous Future of Tertiary Higher Education in a “New American Moment”133 References143 Index145

List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Fig. 1.2

Relationship between higher education and the reproduction of national identity The purpose of higher education as a means to reproduce national identity

27 28

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List of Graphs

Graph 1.1 Graph 1.2 Graph 1.3 Graph 1.4

Total texts analyzed Comparison of number of texts analyzed from each publication Number of texts analyzed from The Junior College Journal/ Community College Journal by decade Number of texts analyzed from The Bulletin/Liberal Education by decade

18 19 25 25

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List of Tables

Table 1.1 Table 1.2 Table 1.3 Table 1.4 Table 1.5

Higher education related texts produced by presidential administrations, 1946–2016 Text count by decade Total text count by source Purpose defined by institution type Means to fulfill purpose

16 17 17 30 31

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Establishing National Identity and the Purpose of Higher Education in the United States

Higher education and its various institutional configurations in the United States has grown and changed alongside social, economic, political, and cultural demands, resulting in the creation of varied institution types that represent specific national agendas and the greater historical context. From 1946 to 2016 higher education was called to educate more citizens to save democracy, train workers to adapt to changing market demands, create commodities demanded by a knowledge-based economy, and prepare future leaders in an interconnected, increasingly globalized, world community (Palmadessa, 2017b). The historical limits of this study are vital to the primary focus of this study: 1946 represents the year the Truman Commission issued its report, Higher Education for American Democracy, in which the presidential agenda to increase access to higher education to save American idealism included an increase in the number of community colleges to meet the influx of students; 2016 marks the final year of President Obama’s administration. The research question I seek to answer in this study is, from 1946 to 2016, how do presidential agendas’ varied expectations of four- and two-year public institutions reflect a greater social disparity among graduates of the respective institution types? Policy initiatives and presidential agendas from 1946 to 2016 that promote access to higher education are ultimately positive changes and goals. However, in these agendas and initiatives, there is a reproduction of ideological practices that ultimately perpetuate inequality and the tertiary structure of American higher education. The prescribed variations of their © The Author(s) 2020 A. L. Palmadessa, Higher Education Divided, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50746-6_1

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role in the United States as defined by presidential agendas and initiatives (Palmadessa, 2017b) represent that inequality. To understand how presidential administrations and initiatives call upon tertiary higher education to respond to national needs differently based upon their position in the hierarchy of institutions and thus reproduce social inequality, I approach the analysis of presidential speeches and initiatives from a human capitalist, economic competition, and conflict lens, and critically analyze the text using methods of critical discourse analysis (CDA).

Review of the Literature Higher education’s purpose and relationship to the nation-state has changed and developed over the course of the institution’s history, particularly in relation to developments in the nation as a whole (Palmadessa, 2017b). As states formed after the Revolution, universities were formed to teach patriots to be leaders (Geiger, 2005). During the formative years of the nineteenth century, the United States expanded and consolidated power, just as the universities were expanded and consolidated (Duryea, 2000). With the dawn of the Second Industrial Revolution after the Civil War, land-grant colleges were founded; at the turn of the twentieth century to the period of the Great War, curriculums were vocationalized to support industrial and agricultural growth in the United States. Although these developments and transformations in both American society and higher education profoundly impacted the future of higher education, none were as great as those following the Second World War (Geiger, 2005). Universities in Twentieth-Century America  The most tumultuous period in higher education history was the period following the Second World War to the 1970s. There were unprecedented demands for enrollment (Geiger, 2005) as well as great debate over the proper direction of higher education: to maintain an academic haven, become a tool for economic growth, or to be a means for social transformation (Newson & Buchbinder, 1988; Schugurensky, 2006). After the Serviceman’s Readjustment Act of 1944 (GI Bill) passed, enrollment surged and institutions adapted to meet the demand for not simply physical space but programs that the students desired. These programs ultimately benefitted the post-War nation, supporting many technological advancements made during the war and bringing the social issues that emerged to the forefront of concern. In the 1950s, however, there was a slight decline in enrollment, only to be

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recovered when the baby boom generation reached college age in the 1960s (Geiger, 2005; Thelin, 2011). The 1960s saw dramatic changes on college campuses as the nation was engulfed in the Cold War. After Sputnik in 1957, the federal government bolstered financial support for research in higher education through the National Defense Education Act of 1958 to maintain status as a leader in technology. Although federal support for research in universities was welcomed and needed, the students of the 1960s did not agree that this was in fact a benefit to the social institution. Rather, the students of the 1960s called for socially oriented research, research that offered a means to an end to social injustices in the United States and abroad. Efforts were made by the nation to support access through the Higher Education Act of 1965 that provided need-based funding for students, but this only addressed one issue. The students demanded that research agendas and subsequent funding changed as they argued that supporting technological dominance was not wholly beneficial to society; higher education and the national government responded, albeit not in the favor of the students (Geiger, 2005). As enrollment patterns changed and students became vocal about their wishes for the purpose and future of higher education, debates ensued within the halls of academe as to the appropriate course for the future of the institution—a debate that was well underway in the post-War era and continued to the later decades of the twentieth century, coming to a pivotal transformation in the 1990s. The themes of academic haven, economic growth, and social transformation as missions of the university were favored and contested by scholars across the second half of the twentieth century (Schugurensky, 2006). The academic haven was supported by scholars who were critical of the changes in higher education to meet external demands as they “argued that the academic and moral integrity of Western higher education was being eroded by the pursuit of utilitarian aims, by the politicization of knowledge, by massive expansion, and by the lowering of standards” (Schugurensky, 2006, p.  303). To alleviate or save the university from such a fate, scholars called for increased autonomy and support of academic freedom to assist the university in avoiding external pressures. Critics suggested raising standards, lowering enrollments, eliminating vocational educational programs, and ceasing community involvement to

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address this issue (Schugurensky, 2006; see also Bloom, 1987; D’Souza, 1991; Hutchins, 1944). The second vision, universities serving for economic growth, was inspired by early human capital theory (Schultz, 1961). In this version of purpose, the university is to focus on technical programs to support knowledge industries. To meet this demand, universities must increase enrollment, work with industry, add more vocational programs, and implement business practices in governance and functions of the institution (Schugurensky, 2006). Finally, the third competing vision synonymous with the calls set forth by students in the late 1960s and early 1970s is that of the university as a tool for social transformation. Supporters, influenced by works such as those by Freire (1967, 1970) and Illich (1971), argued that “universities have an obligation to contribute not only to the equalization of educational opportunities but also to collective projects that promote social and environmental justice and ultimately alter existing social, economic, and political relationships” (Schugurensky, 2006, p. 303). For this goal to be attained, students needed to be subjects not objects of learning, and the “gulf between mental and manual work (and thereby the stratified social relations that derive from the division of labor) and the integration of theoretical and practical knowledge” must be reduced through a focus on socially relevant research that would lead to social transformation (Schugurensky, 2006, p. 304). These competing visions from the 1940s to the 1980s were not simply a discussion; these ideas influenced actors within the universities to work toward one of the proposed goals, thus establishing values and missions for the universities. These values and missions were then realized in social practices, materializing their impact through human agency. Even as impactful as each of the competing visions was over the course of 40 years, by the 1980s a fourth vision emerged, that of the service university. The service university is an enterprise that comprises entrepreneurial academics crafting commodifiable knowledge. Throughout the 1980s it was debated as to whether or not this was a positive or negative position for universities; by the 1990s, it was overwhelmingly publicly considered the appropriate vision for universities in the United States (Schugurensky, 2006). As a result of the emergence of the service university in the 1980s, and the support of academic capitalism as a means to fund higher education, the entrepreneurial university of the 1990s was established (Slaughter & Leslie, 1997). Although this transition to academic capitalist efforts were

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state supported, and often institutionally supported, this description of the university only partially addresses the transformative issues facing higher education as it prepared for the twenty-first century (Schugurensky, 2006). The University and American Society in the Twenty-First Century  As higher education navigates the transformative terrain of the early twenty-first century likened to that of the post-War era (Zusman, 2005), the autonomy of the university is threatened by national, intra-national, and internal challenges to its function and purpose (Jessop, Fairclough, & Wodak, 2008; Schugurensky, 2006; Zusman, 2005). Resulting from decreased federal and state funding, issues of access for the masses, accountability measures from external accrediting bodies and governments (Zusman, 2005), and market involvement, the university has transitioned from an autonomous institution to a heteronomous institution (Schugurensky, 2006). Historically, universities were influenced heavily by national initiatives, legislation, and economic decline; the difference is that now universities are dependent upon external forces. In this heteronomous university, the university is caught between the conflicting forces of laissez-faire economics and government interventionism, reflective of a greater national and intra-national issue. The university exhibits this conflict through goals that represent both market and state demands, commercializing its services to be controlled or at least held accountable by these same outside forces. The university thus becomes a corporatized, customer service enterprise that requires institutions to do more with less and depend on external financial support (Schugurensky, 2006). This heteronomy influences not just how the institution functions, but how and why research is conducted and who is able to attend the university, a social institution that is supposed to be a beacon of hope for those who wish to improve their social or economic status (Zusman, 2005). Resulting from increased accountability, coupled with the need for external funding sources, research in universities is heavily influenced by both private and political interests. This is damaging to the work that is completed at universities as it commodifies the researcher and the knowledge gained, influences decisions made by researchers in releasing information, and alters the rank and file of research importance to market value over social value. Additionally, privatizing universities furthers the gap in access; with less funding, federal aid is challenged and tuition rates increase,

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forcing universities to be more selective in admissions, widening the gap between those the university can and cannot serve (Zusman, 2005). In the twenty-first century, there are more students enrolled in higher education than ever before (Schugurensky, 2006). This fact withstanding, minority groups and other marginalized populations are still underrepresented in higher education. On average, two-thirds of white high school graduates attend college whereas only one-half of African American and Latino high school graduates attend college, with half of that population enrolling in two-year institutions. The greatest barrier to these marginalized populations is poverty; students cannot afford higher education as tuition is on average 70% of their family income, if they are from the lowest strata of family income, the bottom 25%. This excludes a large portion of current high-school graduates, as well as the impending high school graduates who are less white, and less middle class (Zusman, 2005). American higher education traditionally stood as a beacon of hope for the less fortunate, an opportunity to earn a degree that prepares individuals for engaged citizenship and sufficiently situates graduates for gainful employment. Even with growing enrollment, the American public is not evolving to a more engaged and civilized society. Schugurensky (2006) argues: As the 21st century unfolds, it is becoming increasingly clear that technical progress has not necessarily been matched by social or moral progress and that a dramatic expansion of higher education has not necessarily resulted in a more democratic, peaceful, and ethical world … When educational institutions, including universities, are not seriously concerned with the preservation and transmission of basic moral values, they become merely places for workplace and professional training and for research and teaching that are indifferent to human suffering and to social justice. (p. 314)

Since universities are not rising to the challenge to support society over economic or market needs, the question arises as to whether universities have a social responsibility to educate citizens to be contributing members of society (Schugurensky, 2006). Unfortunately, this responsibility is waning as “a college education may be a path to social and economic mobility, but college can also represent a barrier for those unable to gain entrance to the elite institutions that are closely tied to social class” (Zusman, 2005, p. 142). Therefore, those marginalized by society are also marginalized by higher education. This is most evident through a

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comparison of the proscribed role and purpose of the university to the American community college. The American Community College The American community college’s origins, role, and purpose in the ranks of higher education, and American society more broadly, are contested in the literature. The divisions in scholarship center around whether or not the community college is an egalitarian institution, the greatest social exemplar of democratic educational opportunity, or if it is an institution created to support university selectivity, respond to business and economic demands, or an institution that perhaps pigeonholes students into a lower socio-economic status (Dougherty, 1994). This debate of purpose in American society began with the inception of the community college at the turn of the twentieth century (Dougherty & Townsend, 2006), has evolved with changes and challenges throughout the twentieth century (Dougherty, 1994), and again at the turn of the twenty-first century, faces scrutiny and challenge to determine its institutional purpose in the ranks of higher education and society (Levin, 2000). The Twentieth-Century Community College  Due to increased pressure on education to support a growing industrial nation that exemplified support for higher education through the establishment of the land-grant colleges at the end of the nineteenth century, the community college emerged as a means to support the demands for access to higher education and increase the educated populace, a means to a better society (Cohen & Brawer, 2008). The early community colleges constructed their position in the hierarchy by serving populations that otherwise would not attend a university immediately after high school; it was an affordable, first two years of transferrable liberal arts college education that provided a means to an otherwise difficult aspiration based on location and economic status. As the community colleges grew in number and demands of an advancing society changed, the focus and purpose of community college education began to shift. In the 1920s, the curriculum became increasingly vocational to assist graduates in attaining mid-level positions in business and industry. This began the dual role of the community college—to support a liberal arts and general education curriculum for transferability to the university and vocational training to create educated workers—that

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persisted until the 1960s. The dual role was negotiated and continued as a result of social, economic, and industrial needs promulgated by world wars and their impacts on domestic changes and challenges. In addition, this new-found niche of vocational training did separate the community college from the university, moving the institution away from the assumption that it was second class to the university (Brint & Karabel, 1991). This dual role continued to be the norm in community college missions until the 1990s (Levin, 2000). The 1990s saw a shift in focus from the dual role of preparation for transfer and vocational training to serving economic ends. At the end of the twentieth century, organizations responded to demands of the marketplace, not the students, changing the focus to educating a workforce to meet economic demands. This shift removes the local, community importance of the community college and replaces it with serving the economy more generally by producing labor, both goals supporting the middle class, not the students the college is supposed to serve (Levin, 2000). The Twenty-First-Century Community College The changing mission of the community college to respond to market demands and focus on infusing the labor market with human capital is of great importance as the population of students attending community colleges is increasing in the twenty-first century. Due to increased university tuition and continued selectivity, more American college hopefuls are finding the community college to be their only option for higher education (Dougherty & Townsend, 2006). This results in the community college serving large populations of students from low socio-economic backgrounds, many of which are from marginalized or minority populations (Ayers, 2005). Because of this focus on vocational training to meet market needs and the availability of open access and lower tuition education, the community college is “instrumental in reproducing the class inequalities associated with advanced capitalism” (Ayers, 2005, p. 528) as these goals serve the elite through the perpetuation of social class divisions in American society. The perpetuation of classism facilitated by the community college is not a new phenomenon; critics argue that this was the case even in the early community colleges as they served the cast-offs of the university and supported the university’s will to be selective and control the market of college-­degree-holding citizens (Brint & Karabel, 1991; Dougherty & Townsend, 2006; Labaree, 1990). Furthermore, the students who attend

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community colleges, often disadvantaged before attending, are less likely to continue their education at the university as a result of substituting the associate’s degree for a baccalaureate degree under the false pretense that the two-year degree will result in lucrative employment (Dougherty, 1994). Unfortunately, “[f]our year college entrants and graduates enjoy a considerable advantage over their community college counterparts on a variety of economic yardsticks, including occupational status, hourly and yearly income, and protection from unemployment” (Dougherty, 1994, p. 59). The community college is called to be an open access institution, to respond to the demands of business, industry, and the marketplace leaders, and be positioned to accept more students as universities become less accessible due to financial crises and rising tuition rates. Thus, the community college mission to serve all who want an education is thwarted by systemic societal inequities that disadvantage community college students into lower social classes than their university counterparts; “[b]ecause the community college is often the only viable educational option for members of marginalized communities, the structural outcomes of its mission are of great consequence to educators, policymakers, and citizens concerned with social justice and participatory democracy” (Ayers, 2005, p.  528). This problem of opportunity for access and subsequent social class division is representative of a deeply rooted problem in American society; the same divisions based on race, class, and gender are prevalent in broader society and will continue to cause division within the community college as a function and practice (Dougherty & Townsend, 2006).

Neoliberalism and Higher Education Neoliberalism is simply defined as the new capitalism that dominates the global market; it is not only an economic philosophy, but an ideological premise for how the world should be interconnected. This new capitalist structure is inextricably tied to globalization, although globalization is itself a much larger issue. This political discourse has bred an ideological tendency to consider education as a byproduct of the market, giving it an economic function (Olssen & Peters, 2005). This situates higher education to be challenged by neoliberal ideologies, globalization, immigration, socio-economic inequality, the knowledge-based economy, and American cultural identity (Benjamin, 2003). It is this set of influences that are central to the hegemonic influence of neoliberalism (Benjamin, 2003) that

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forces nation-states to become market-states, and thus these market-states must create commodifiable knowledge to support the global knowledge-­ based economy (Ainley, 2004). The greatest source of knowledge is the academy; thus the pressure for higher education to create marketable knowledge to support the public it serves to become a dominant force in the market. This shift in focus from social and cultural domination based on economic performance has significant influence on institutions of higher learning, practitioners and faculty, and students. In addition to producing knowledge commodities, higher education is also expected to produce an educated workforce that can compete on a global scale. This new directive requires institutions to modify the mission and purpose to meet these demands, situating students as commodities to be sold and knowledge a source of capital (Benjamin, 2003). This reinforces competition that reduces people to human capital and perpetuates social inequality due to limited resources and availability of employment. These directives are created within the context of neoliberalism that supports social inequality (Gildersleeve, Kuntz, Pasque, & Carducci, 2010). This focus on market demands and human capital negates the historic social purpose of higher education and supports a system of higher learning that will respond to the global market, reinforcing the adaptation of the nation-state as a market-state (Ainely, 2004). The traditional social obligations and duties of the university are deeply embedded in its history and therefore serve as a common reference in public memory. Kezar (2004) argues that if the industrial/corporate model and focus persists, higher education will lose its position of integrity with the public as the public good will no longer be central to its purpose. Furthermore, if higher education continues with this trend not only will it abandon its duty, it will also relinquish the right to determine its own identity (Kezar, 2004), succumbing to the market pressures of neoliberalism and perpetuated by academic capitalism in the academy (Palmadessa, 2014).

Defining the Public The public, in this work, is conceptualized according to Habermasian theory; the public sphere is created by discourse and provides a space for exchange of knowledge, particularly relevant to socio-political issues. When a group or groups come together to discuss and exchange discourse, a public sphere is created. This sphere is not something of permanence,

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rather it is imagined, or created, by the participants (Habermas 1962). Thus language is a key component of the creation of a public sphere, and in this case, the imagined identity is recreated and reconstituted by the actors within this sphere through discourse that it ideologically laden and represented first on a national scale through presidential narrative, recontextualized in publications that inform actors within the social institution of higher education. Supporting the importance of language in the creation of the public sphere, Lyotard (1984) argues that to use language to create common understanding and communication through any method is to build a narrative that tells a story that defines those involved in the practice. This applies to both people and the collective, as the body politic is created through text as it is denaturalized and cannot be considered as a preexisting natural identity. This collective identity through the body politic allows politics and policy-making to reinvent the state and the government through a reconstitution of old concerns into new narratives to gain appeal and support (Schram & Neisser, 1997).

Conceptual Framework Ideological practices and values are embedded into every aspect of modern society through discursive hegemonic code. This is evident in market ethos and capitalist values centered within social institutions in the United States (Jessop, 2002). Educational institutions are not exempt from the reach of this damaging ideological force; neoliberal ideology permeates educational curriculums at all levels. As a result, economic value is dominant and people are measured by their utility in the market rather than their contributions to a democratic society. To maintain a class-based society to perpetuate capitalism in the United States, individuals must be properly socialized to enter the workforce in a particular stratum of both work and socio-economic status (Apple, 2004). Education therefore responds to the dominant hegemonic ideology and perpetuates social inequality, sometimes unknowingly. Higher education in particular has a profound impact on the public as its position and purpose is somewhat contested in recent past with opposing viewpoints as to whether higher education should be considered a public or private good (Kezar, 2004; Palmadessa, 2014). This debate is compounded by the fact that the challenges posed for higher education in a knowledge-based economic structure are deeply embedded in the social institutions that create

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and perpetuate neoliberal ideology (Jessop, 2002), making the task of solidifying education as a public good that truly benefits all members of society arduous and complex. The complexities that hinder education meeting its democratic purpose are focused around the logics of competitiveness (Ayers, 2012) and reduction of humans to commodifiable capital created by a neoliberal global knowledge-based society (Jessop, 2002). For competition to reign, and humans to market themselves and to be marketed, higher education must prepare individuals for this world of capitalist servitude; thus the role of competition and conflict as a means of control from the ideological superstructure is relevant to the institution of higher education (Jessop, 2002). Additionally, conflict theory must be considered to best understand how social institutions, in this case higher education, function within the discursive world as ideology legitimates inequality based on economic differences, a result of competition in the market (Ballantine & Spade, 2001). The scholar most noted for the application of this lens to the understanding of competition and involvement of neoliberal market ideology in education is Apple (2004) (Weis, McCarthy, & Dimitriadis, 2006). Apple’s analysis of the institution of education determines that education is not a neutral act; rather it is political even if the educator is not consciously aware of political tendencies. This cannot be avoided as education is a social institution that maintains a direct relationship with the economy, and in turn, between the knowledge it purports and the power that knowledge holds. Apple (2004) argues this point by stating “the structuring of knowledge and symbol in our educational institutions is intimately related to the principles of social and cultural control in a society” (p. 2). This statement alludes to the fact that assessing the relationship of the economy to education is not enough alone to understand the logics of power and competition; culture and ideology must be considered as well. This point also relates the institution of education to greater society through the means by which knowledge is both controlled and disseminated (Apple, 2004). In an effort to adequately understand the reach of ideological influence, competition, and conflict in the institution of education, the epistemological lens of human capital theory is employed to ascertain how these trends and practices recreate social hierarchy and inequality in the institution of education. The foundations of human capital theory can be found in Adam Smith’s seminal 1776 work, Wealth of Nations. Although embedded in the industrial ideology of the nineteenth century, human capital

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theory was not used as a lens until the mid-twentieth century. The basic premise of this theory lies in the fact that people are productive and the skills gained through education are developed and products are made which in turn support the economy (Baptiste, 2001). Business and education invest in developing people to create marketable goods, focusing on the market utility of individuals, thus humans become capital that can be consumed (Noblit & Pink, 1995). Additionally, human capital theory posits that humans invest in themselves through taking care of one’s health and education to improve quality of life and abilities which increase potential for productivity (Baptiste, 2001). Although this theory is historically based, and most closely related to economic theory in the 1960s, it is alive and well in the modern institution of education. Human capital theory is most notably and harmfully present in national education policy. The inclusion of human capital theory in federal policy occurred over the course of three historical phases from the 1960s to the 1980s. First, education and economic growth were inextricably linked together in the neoliberal market making both a public investment directed toward human capital. Second, the inclusion of the screening hypothesis, which looks solely at the credentials of a person not the measure of the skill, was used to determine both employment and pay of an individual worker. Third, in the 1980s, the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development structural adjustment policies were created as a result of advances in technology supporting the demand for educated workers presumed to be more capable of learning efficiently and changing with technological advancement (Baptiste, 2001).

Methods To uncover the varieties of roles prescribed to tertiary institutions and the resulting inequality, I employ the discourse historical approach (DHA) (Reisigl & Wodak, 2009), a method employed by critical discourse analysts to uncover the ideological nature of language to understand the influence and power of discourse. Methodologically, discourse analysts take discourse as one point of entry into analysis of practices. Because discourse and other moments of practices are dialectically related, the analysis of discourse can lead to insights about other moments of the practice. This is the main concern of CDA (Fairclough, 2003): discourse matters because it affects power relations, institutions, rituals, and other aspects of social and material reality. When discourse functions as a mechanism of power

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and domination, it is problematic. CDA allows scholars to recognize forms of oppression that may otherwise be obscured by hegemonic relations. CDA involves the systematic analysis of empirical data, with the intent of theorizing the possible existence of abstract structures as manifest in language. As such, the object of the analysis is discourse, which manifests empirically as texts. The final step in CDA research is the recontextualization of the discourse in other forms or practices. Recontextualization is a category of analysis central to methods synonymous with CDA, and therefore in the historical context, with DHA (Wodak & Fairclough, 2010). Discourse analysis focuses on texts that reveal the relationship between discourse and moments of social change. As a result, this requires the researcher to simultaneously [address] (a) relations between discourse and other social elements or moments (i.e. ‘mediation’), and (b) relations between social events/texts and more durable, more stable, or institutionalized, more abstract levels of social reality: social practices and social structures … [and] (c) broadly spatial and temporal relationships between events and texts (i.e. ‘intertextuality’). (Wodak & Fairclough, 2010, p. 22)

To address the relationship between discourse and other social moments, the dialectics of discourse (Harvey, 1996) must be considered to study both the emergence and operationalization of discourses in their material reality (Wodak & Fairclough, 2010). Meeting the challenge of relations between social events, practices, and structures, the dialectical relationship between practices and strategies must be addressed. “Social events (and texts) are contingent upon and shaped by structures and practices and their semiotic moments, languages, and ‘orders of discourse’, but they are also deployments of social agency … directed at shaping (reproducing or transforming) structures or practices” (Wodak & Fairclough, 2010, p. 22); thus the focus of analysis of recontextualization must be not on individual texts but on chains of texts or events. The final challenge, locating spatial and temporal relationships between texts, is particularly difficult as intertextuality takes place in different spheres and social fields, moving both spatially and temporally between various contexts, being influenced by those contexts. Through this dialectical relationships and realizations of discourse, there exists potential for the discourse to become hegemonic. This is notable, particularly in the field of policy as discursive practices are evident in various levels and spaces of time and place, transformation, and recontextualization (Wodak & Fariclough, 2010).

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In other words, through processes of recontextualization, hegemonic ideologies are disseminated throughout the policy fields. In this way, a dominant ideology … exercises control over other by perpetuating (subtly) persuasive  – abstracted, mystifying  – messages that get others to actively agree with them. (Wodak & Fairclough, 2010, p. 25)

Recontextualization of ideologically embedded discourse is a key component of the methods I use to reveal the discursive practices of national identity in the United States and how that identity is recreated by institutions of higher education, and how the tertiary position of institutions influences the interpretation of their contribution and/or understanding of an appropriate version of national identity.

Data The parameters of this study were purposefully selected based on federal attention to higher education—1946 was selected as the beginning as that is the year the Truman Commission on Higher Education for American Democracy was appointed and began work, and 2016, the closing year of this study, was selected as it coincides with the conclusion of President Obama’s second term in office. The data analyzed for this project consists of two specific categories: presidential speeches regarding two- and four-­ year institutions and national publications representing two- and four-year institutions respectively. Over 1000 presidential speeches from 1946 to 2016 were analyzed to ascertain the national agenda pertaining to institutions of higher learning; the analysis included the policy trajectory and influence on institutions and the relationship of the institution type to the discursively constructed national identity within the public presidential speeches. Higher education, in general, is referenced or discussed, but also specific institution types are addressed. For example, presidents speak of higher education, universities, and colleges generally, but they also specify private colleges, historically black colleges and universities, and community colleges. I am not considering the differences in how presidents discuss public versus private colleges, or historically black institutions, for example. However, that is a point of interest for further research. In this study, I consider how presidents discuss or promote the role of universities (a general reference to public institutions of higher education granting a minimum of a baccalaureate degree) and community colleges (associate’s degree granting public institutions) in perpetuating social class

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Table 1.1  Higher education related texts produced by presidential administrations, 1946–2016 President in Office (term in years) Truman (1945–1953) Eisenhower (1953–1961) Kennedy (1961–1963) Johnson (1963–1969) Nixon (1969–1974) Ford (1974–1977) Carter (1977–1981) Reagan (1981–1989) Bush (1989–1993) Clinton (1993–2001) Bush (2001–2009) Obama (2009–2016) Totals

Public speeches that include higher education

Federal Legislation

Presidential Commission reports

Column totals

26

0

5

31

29

1

0

30

32

3

0

35

49

5

0

54

38

3

1

42

32

2

0

34

23

3

0

26

55

2

1

58

33

5

0

38

194

12

1

207

57

12

1

70

431

5

1

437

999

53

10

1061

distinctions synonymous with the US economic, social, and cultural hierarchy (Table 1.1). The texts analyzed to ascertain the recontextualization of the crafted identity, and to determine if, by institution type, that identity is found to be manifested differently, two national organizations’ publications were analyzed: The Community College Journal (CCJ), the publication of the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), and The Bulletin/Liberal Education (LE), the publication of the Association of American Colleges and Universities. These publications are macro-­ representations of the institution types that allow for a point of entry into

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the discursive practices that are recontextualized within the institutions’ purpose and relationship to the national agenda and overall ideological identity, influencing the experience and understanding of the members of the tertiary institutions. Table 1.2 represents the total number of articles relevant to the purpose of the publication’s representative institution type. Every article published between 1946 and 2016 was considered; those represented in Table 1.2 are the total number of articles analyzed for the recontextualization of purpose in the context of American national identity. To further demonstrate the breadth and depth of textual analysis and research to answer the research question guiding this study—from 1946 to 2016, how do presidential agendas’ varied expectations of four- and two- year public institutions reflect a greater social disparity among graduates of the respective institution types?—a total count of texts by type is included in Table 1.3. Graph 1.1 shows the distribution of texts by type in total versus by decade.

Table 1.2  Text count by decade Decade 1946–1949 1950–1959 1960–1969 1970–1979 1980–1989 1990–1999 2000–2009 2010–2019 Total texts

Junior College Journal/Community The Bulletin/Liberal Combined total College Journal Education texts 10 101 133 43 31 30 49 19 416

29 18 16 27 24 44 93 74 325

39 119 149 70 55 74 142 93 741

Table 1.3  Total text count by source Text source Presidential Speeches and Public Addresses The Junior College Journal/Community College Journal The Bulletin/Liberal Education

Total texts analyzed 1061 416 325

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Junior College Journal/ Community College Journal 450 400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0

1946-1949

1950-1959

1960-1969

1970-1979

1980-1989

1990-1999

2000-2009

2010-2019

Total texts

Graph 1.1  Total texts analyzed

The fact that there are more presidential speeches and public statements than representative recontextualization samples in the institution types’ publications should not be considered a negative representation. This does not represent a lack of interest in the purpose of higher education in the broader context of the nation; rather it is in part simply due to a set number of publication dates for the journals versus the flexibility in number of public addresses given by each President studied and, most importantly, there are indications of a pattern of interest in the discussion regarding the purpose of higher education in the United States. Graph 1.2 represents the text count by decade, by journal. As indicated in Graph 1.2, there is a clear distinction in the 1946–1969 period in which the community college was experiencing a higher number of discussions regarding purpose of the institution. Conversely, there are points where the lines cross, indicating a period in which the purpose of the four-year institution is being debated. What is most striking is the sharp rise in recontextualized moments that occur in the most recent past, the last 10 years. Each of these points, whether a sharp divide along the axis or a point at which they cross, plummet, or sharply rise, indicates a mark in time that higher education is responding to the nation-state, considering or re-considering its purpose in the context of the historical moment.

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The Bulletin/ Liberal Education 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

1950-1959

1960-1969

1970-1979

1980-1989

1990-1999

2000-2009

2010-2019

Total texts

Graph 1.2  Comparison of number of texts analyzed from each publication

Rationale for Text Selection The objective of the analysis of the presidential texts selected in this study was to determine if the texts created an identity for the body politic as well as the imaginary that “constitute[s] communities and individuals” (Schram & Neisser, 1997, p.  4). The discourses employed are reinforced in the American memory through the support of the President, evident to the public through speeches, press releases, addresses, and signing statements. Often, these discourses are present not only when presidents discuss their general national agenda, but when addressing a particular legislative action or policy action relevant to higher education. The discourses the given President uses in the narrative regarding national identity and higher education, often simultaneously, impact the public’s perception of the role of higher education, understand actors within the social institution, and recognize how discourse shapes and perpetuates the identity of the nation. The discourses presented in the national publications, Community College Journal and Liberal Education, are representations of the understanding of the ideological influences of presidential discourse surrounding higher education and related policy. These publications are representations of varied institution types and serve as a means of communicating matters from national to local relevant to higher education.

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Narrative Practices  Narratives of the state, through policy-making and public addresses, create and explain the state of public affairs which represent and recreate the imaginaries that “constitute communities and individuals” (Schram & Neisser, 1997, p. 4). These narratives cross social and political realms and depend upon the stories of identity and history that construct not only the “mythology of ‘America’” but also “political actors’ identities” (Schram & Neisser, 1997, p. 2). By using the dominant narratives to define the state and those wielding power, “selective narrative practices, especially … regarding policy problems, are used episodically to construct politically-biased depictions of public problems” (Schram & Neisser, 1997, p. 2). Public problems presented through narrative practices therefore mediate the relationship between individual citizens, between the people and the state, and between states. To understand the rationale for policy-making and to properly analyze public policy, Schram and Neisser (1997) argue that a positivist approach is not enough. Instead, an approach that lends the field of policy studies to be approached from perspectives formerly excluded, such as “Marxism, social constructionism, structuralism, poststructuralism, cultural studies, etc.” (p. 6). To employ alternate perspectives, narratives must be considered as representational practices that discursively frame and contextualize policy problems and solutions. These representational practices “mediate what policy-makers, analysts, and citizens take to be the reality and objects of concern of the political process” as well as “which of their concerns are to be included and which are to be excluded” (Schram & Neisser, 1997, p. 6). The narratives created in representational practices also “construct political space itself … where it begins and where it ends, who populates it and who does not … Stories [or narratives therefore] map space and keep time in ways that impose coherence on identities, interests, and institutionalized groupings” (Schram & Neisser, 1997, p. 6). The political space in which narrative practices and representations are employed is of utmost importance as political space becomes real and political actors use the narrative scripts for engaging the public and gaining their support. Narratives fill the public political space with a critical shaping of how policy fulfills social truths (Schram & Neisser, 1997) that define the imagined community (Anderson, 2006) in which they live. In the case of the United States, the community is defined as a democratic ideal. This imaginary of democratic idealism that the public accepts is perpetuated by the narratives, the stories that are produced and reproduced

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through representational practices. According to Lyotard (1984), to use language to create common understanding and communication through any method is to build a narrative that tells a story that defines those involved in the practice. This applies to both people and the collective, as the body politic is created through text as it is denaturalized and cannot be considered as a preexisting natural identity (Schram & Neisser, 1997). This collective identity through the body politic allows politics and policy-­ making to reinvent the state and the government through a reconstitution of old concerns into new narratives to gain appeal and support (Schram & Neisser, 1997). Given this lens of approaching discourse as representational practices, metanarratives, as described by Lyotard (1984) as a means to institutionalize the context of narratives, link specific policy concerns to enduring narratives, such as narratives that support and recreate idealistic narratives and attributes of the state, its perpetuation of national identity. Thus, as Schram and Neisser (1997) posit: America comes to be materialized through discourse, embodied in its citizenry, and represented in the state … In other words, both mundane stories of daily life and dramatic accounts from the frontlines of battle execute a sort of narrative statecraft by reinforcing the banal truths by which political institutions operate, thereby serving to buttress the processes by which identities and practices are or are not affirmed. (p. 10)

Accepting the role of narrative as representational discursive practice, the question regarding why some narratives become dominant emerges (Schram & Neisser, 1997). This occurs as a result of the hegemonic reach of ideological idealism, the discourse that reconstitutes and constructs the identity of the state. In this analysis, the imagined community is identified and the democratic identity of the imagined community accepted by the public is perpetuated in politics through policy and public leaders in the United States. In the present analysis, the imagined community is identified and accepted by the public, and is perpetuated through policy and by public leaders, creating an ideal identity of the state. Presidential Discourse  Through the narrative practices of presidents, reality is mediated and the identity of the nation is created, notably through the President’s performance as “an embodiment of the American populous, representing hopes and fears through the arts of communication”

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(White, 1997, p. 53). The President is an actor in an historical moment, and how they use narrative discourse to communicate and connect with the American public is of the utmost importance. Presidents communicate the “American ideology” through their role as spokesman for the nation, and as the arbiter of national identity (White, 1997, p. 54). To fully understand how national identity is imagined and accepted through presidential narrative, texts must be critically analyzed through theoretical lenses that bring the phenomenon of imagined identity to the forefront of the consciousness of the American public (Schram & Neisser, 1997). The presidency as an office was not specified in the Constitution by the founders of the United States; it has been rhetorically constructed through historical discourse recreated and employed by the man who occupied its space. Through the role of the President, his position in the hierarchy of the government, his ability to attain a national audience through media, and the customs that have resulted from speaking expectations and engagements have negotiated an office that speaks for and to the public, defining the American people and the nation in which they live. This places immense power in the rhetorical action created through discourses by the President, offers insight into the historical context of the action, and allows the presidency to control the identity of the nation once the public is defined (Campbell & Jameison, 2008). Public Speeches and Statements  The texts analyzed to ascertain national identity as defined by US presidents and their interpretation of the purpose of higher education are public speeches, statements, and documents delivered by the President to the public. Included in this data set are inaugural addresses, State of the Union addresses, signing statements and press releases, executive orders and proclamations (Palmadessa, 2017a, 2017b). These texts were identified using a keyword search of “university”, “college”, and “higher education” on the American Presidency Project repository of presidential documents, www.presidency.ucsb.edu. Inaugural addresses are ceremonial transitions in which the incoming President has the opportunity to create a public memory of what they stand for represent their goals for their time in office without action. These speeches are typically focused on renewing the “covenant between citizenry and their leaders” and provide an opportune time for the incoming President to establish rapport with the constituency by defining the public

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and creating unity by situating the public as “the people”, providing a context for democratic idealism and identity (Campbell & Jameison, 2008, pp. 31–36). The State of the Union annual address by the President before Congress, the Justices of the Supreme Court, and the heads of the various branches of the military occurs as a result of custom as such a report is mandated by the Constitution, albeit not required to be a public address. In this address, the President has the opportunity to be the “national historian”, constructing the past in order to create the future, involving the officers of the federal government and the general public in creating the reality of the nation and its identity once that reality is discursively impressed upon the people (Campbell & Jameison, 2008, p. 137). This address shows that the President is aware of what troubles the public, and offers his recommendations as to what legislative actions could be made to alleviate what is ailing the nation in that historical moment. This address is thus “one symbolic moment in which the head of state has woven the cloth of common national history, character, and identity” (Campbell & Jameison, 2008, p.  140). Signing statements and general press releases regarding legislation relevant to higher education are included in the analysis as they are not grand ceremonial acts; they are a moment in which the President seizes the opportunity to express support of legislation or discussions regarding potential legislation to his national audience. This is an important moment in which the President acts as the “national host” (White, 1997, p. 54) as he is able to readily connect with the general population through various medias, currently through immediate electronic media outlets (Schram & Neisser, 1997). Executive orders and proclamations are legislative powers granted to the office of the presidency by the Constitution. Executive orders allow the President to issue orders to assist in the implementation or interpretation of laws or treaties and do have the ability to be enacted into law once determined by Congress to appropriately represent the legislative authority granted to the presidency. Community College Journal and Liberal Education  The CCJ and LE were selected as they are national publications representative of two institution types—two- and four-year institutions, respectively. CCJ is the publication of the AACC, and LE is the publication of the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). Each association and the respective publications have existed and been in press earlier than the beginning limit of this study, 1946, and are still active and published in 2020. These

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tertiary-­specific institutional organizations and the publications they house and distribute address issues relevant to institutions, policy-makers, practitioners, and faculty who serve and contribute to higher education. In this sharing of knowledge and perspectives regarding higher education, the publications represent the interpretation of the national political narratives as they relate to higher education. As these ideologies or political narratives are interpreted, they are recontextualized in the publications, closing the cycle of reproduction of identity, and as argued in this work, solidifying the bifurcation of socio-political identities for the publics they serve, based upon the dominant national identity as publicly defined by presidential agendas through discourse. The graphs below represent the number of texts within each publication that relate to the role of two- and four-year institutions in reproducing national identity, as recontextualized in the discourse. Graph 1.3 represents the text count for CCJ; Graph 1.4 represents the text count for LE. Each publication has clear peak times in which there are more instances of recontextualized discourse present. This is further discussed in the analysis of each time period and in the context of the presidential agendas represented in the speeches analyzed.

Two- and Four-Year Institutions Generalized Higher education is a diverse social institution in the United States. Throughout its rich history of growth and development, what constitutes higher education has shifted alongside the changing demands of the nation-state. Thus, the multitude of institution types provides at the same time a challenge and an opportunity for researchers to analyze and attempt to understand how the varied institution types create the expectations and purpose of higher education. However, given the variation of institution types—public research institutions, private liberal arts colleges, women’s colleges, church-affiliated institutions, historically black colleges and universities, community colleges, junior colleges, vocational institutions, to name a few—it is virtually impossible to cover the breadth of research to understand how each type perceives the purpose on a national scale, to recreate an ideologically driven and discursively constructed national identity that ultimately divides across class lines based on the public’s perception of who and how institutions serve their constituents.

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Total Texts Analyzed The Bulletin Liberal Education 18%

The Junior College Journal 23%

Presidential Speeches and Public Addresses 59%

Presidential Speeches and Public Addresses: 1052 The Junior College Journal/Community College Journal: 416 The Bulletin/Liberal Education: 325

Graph 1.3  Number of texts analyzed from The Junior College Journal/ Community College Journal by decade

Graph 1.4  Number of texts analyzed from The Bulletin/Liberal Education by decade

To remedy this challenge, I have generalized a highly varied tertiary institution into two- and four-year institutions, considered as generally public, and receiving state and federal funds for operations. Reinforcing the ability to generalize the institutions into two categories, the

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publications and the organizations they represent (AACC’s CCJ and AAC&U’s LE) are national organizations that serve the respective generalized two- and four-year institutions. The opportunity for future research is presented here—replicating the study based upon specific institution types could be a fruitful work that furthers the understanding of divisions within American society, reinforced by not only presidential agendas but the recreation of the ideological practices in institutions of higher learning.

Establishing National Identity and the Role of Higher Education Through analysis of the presidential data, the dominant identity of the United States is determined to be a nation that is superior through economic means that support freedom and is reinforced by education as institutions recreate the dominant identity through their function as social institutions and arbiters of knowledge (Palmadessa, 2014, 2017a, 2017b). American superiority is dependent upon the economic status of the nation, which ensures freedom, and must be recreated continuously through social institutions (Palmadessa, 2017a). American superiority is defined in terms of comparison to the enemy or the “other”; the United States is compared to other nations’ economies, militaries, political and social institutions. Although the “other” often changes given the historical context, in each period studied, the enemy is clearly identified and positioned as the opposite of the ideal state. One means by which superiority is defined is through the importance of higher education in the nation and how colleges and universities exhibit superiority likened to the nation as a whole. This is reinforced through institutional policy, further legitimating policy-making and the intentions of those policies to maintain a position of authority, within and outside of the institutional mission which also creates or contributes to the common past and present in institutional and national historical narrative. Presidents employ national narrative of the past, citing familiar and culturally acceptable imagery to reinforce the notion that not only is the nation currently superior, it is the destiny of the nation to be superior, and it is the duty of all aspects of American society and culture to keep the nation in its position (Palmadessa, 2017a). In the presidential speeches, there is an intentional connection between the economy and the freedom of the people. This connection of economic

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status of the nation to the people’s quality of life indicates that the capitalist market is a superior system that dictates a nation’s ability to assume a superior status among nations, exhibited by the experiences and social representations of their publics (Palmadessa, 2014). Part of this ability to experience a superior nation, enjoy economic security and freedom, is a sound educational system. Thus, presidents define the purpose of education in the context of American superiority and the equating of economy to freedom. The purpose of education is simply a reflection of the means by which the presidency prefers that the nation pursues and maintains its position as superior through economic terms. In turn, this makes higher education in particular an economic agent (Palmadessa, 2017b), as illustrated in Fig. 1.1. Considering the realities of capitalism, there are those who will benefit more fruitfully from the market economy than others. Not only do markets result in varied experiences, capitalism requires that there be divisions among participants, creating an inequitable distribution of wealth to maintain the system. Given this economic structure, to maintain its function and support its debatable success, institutions of higher education are forced to serve the divisive social structure created by capitalism and reinforced by federal leaders and policy. Thus, tertiary institutions serve the nation by fulfilling their shared purposes, with the understanding of those shared purposes defined based upon the social class served and expected to maintain by the type of education and knowledge gained in varied institution types. This results in an artificial cohesive purpose in that the overall goals are the same, yet the realization of those goals is determined by the product, the knowledge, and the individual. Fig. 1.1  Relationship between higher education and the reproduction of national identity

Economy = Freedom

American Superiority

Higher Education as an Economic Agent

Purpose of Education

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Three Purposes of Higher Education Defined In the analysis of presidential texts, I determined there are three main objectives of higher education defined in the speeches and relegated as the means by which higher education supports national superiority and economic status. Higher education is expected to fulfill three main purposes: preserve democracy, support citizenship literacy, and ensure economic stability. These tiered purposes are connected from the national level to the individual as higher education is expected to facilitate the preservation of the national democratic system, educate society to fulfill their individual and collective roles in that democracy, and create opportunity for education that facilitates economic security of the nation, society, and the individual (Fig. 1.2).

Fig. 1.2  The purpose of higher education as a means to reproduce national identity

Economy = Freedom

American Superiority Purpose of Education Higher Education as an Economic Agent

Four Year Colleges and Universities

Two Year Colleges Three Shared Purposes: 1. Preservation of Democracy 2. Citizenship Literacy 3. Economic Stability

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Preservation of Democracy From the early days of the Republic when Thomas Jefferson proclaimed the importance of education in a democracy and founded the University of Virginia, it has been recognized that a democracy cannot be sustained if the public expected to participate in that democracy is not provided adequate educational opportunity. The preservation of democracy as a purpose and duty of higher education is supported through institutional policy, curriculum, and student engagement. Through these means, the so-called soft skills required to preserve democracy are taught and learned through the process of education itself. Although this occurs in each institution type by similar means, the goal or definition of purpose is interpreted differently. In the two-year community and/or junior colleges, democracy is preserved through increased access, which provides opportunity to more individuals and groups. The four-­ year college or university preserves democracy by instilling values in their students and training those students to be leaders. Citizenship Literacy  Democracy cannot be preserved if the citizens of that democracy are not educated to understand what their role is in the system and how to execute their duties. The United States depends on its citizens to practice their rights to ensure liberty, but what does that mean for the individual in the larger collective public? Two-year institutions focus on the community it serves as a means to educate students on the role of citizenship. The colleges respond to community needs by adjusting curricula and attending to the general needs of the community in and outside of its campus. In doing so, the community is engaged in the college, the college is engaged in the community, and students are engaged in both the institution and the larger community. The four-year institutions prepare students for service, to be global citizens, and to actively pursue leadership. This positions graduates to seek roles in any part of the world, to use their superior position through their education to serve through leadership. Economic Stability  All educational institutions are charged with preparing individuals to enter the world outside of the halls of academia, regardless of what level of education someone completes. It is a necessary reality of capitalism that individuals will be separated by socio-economic status, facilitated by the limitations of opportunity in the work world which determines their economic attainment level. Therefore, each educational level attained has a connection to national economic stability in the capitalist system and an individual economic position, resulting from the

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Table 1.4  Purpose defined by institution type Institution type

Preservation of democracy

Citizenship literacy

Economic stability

Two-Year Colleges

Provide opportunity; increase access Instill values; train leaders

Respond to community needs; engage community Prepare for service; active leadership; global citizenship

Train for vocation; create human capital; workforce development Innovation; knowledge production; corporate leadership

Four-Year Colleges and Universities

institution type attended and the resulting skill or knowledge level of the graduate, allowing for or restricting the type of work an individual can or will pursue. Two-year colleges are expected to infuse the workforce with individuals trained for particular vocations, creating and providing human capital. In contrast, the four-year colleges and universities are expected to be innovative and produce knowledge capital and corporate leaders. This clearly defines the economic contributions of each institution type and creates the process by which graduates are relegated to specific economic stations as a result of where they completed post-secondary education (Table 1.4).

Recontextualizing National Identity and Institutional Purpose Analysis of LE and CCJ results in a recontextualization of national identity and the purpose of tertiary institutions in the reconstitution of the identity of the superior nation-state that ensures the public’s freedom through economic status and requires that citizens be educated to support this position among nations. In the representative institutional publications, articles recontextualize the discursive practices of presidential narrative, defining and supporting the national agenda in each historical context. The articles analyzed do not counter the President’s interpretation of identity; rather, the arguments presented in the texts are working to find ways for higher education to assume responsibility for national success (Table 1.5). In the associations’ publications, higher education’s duty to preserve democracy, engage citizens, and support economic stability is not simply

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Table 1.5  Means to fulfill purpose Purpose of higher education

How two- and four-year institutions fulfill purpose

Preservation of Democracy Citizenship Literacy Economic Stability

Policy, curriculum, student engagement Civic engagement, service, campus culture Programs, degree attainment/type, educational product/career preparation

reinforced; it is recontextualized as the uncontested purpose of the institution. Higher education’s trinity of purpose is woven into the discourse of researchers and practitioners, faculty and critics, throughout the publications. In the discussion of the recontextualization of purpose in each chapter, excerpts representative of this discursive practice are highlighted as a means to demonstrate an ultimate understanding and acceptance of institutional purpose as defined through presidential discourse in relationship to American national identity.

The Body of Work In the following chapters, each begins with an historical overview of the context in which the government and the institutions are functioning and the general impact on higher education. Next, I present the analysis of the presidential texts, followed by analysis of text from CCJ and LE. Each analysis section elaborates on the analytical points through CDA/DHA and is followed by a discussion of how the data suggests, or not, that the implementation or recreation of the national agenda as perceived by the tertiary institutions as represented by the publications occurs and how that relates to a divided national identity, based on socio-economic representations. Each chapter concludes with a comparative summary of points and transitions to the next historical period considered. The first content chapter, “Preserving and Promoting Democracy: University Demands and the Importance of the Community College in Post-War America, 1946–1953”, discusses the immediate impact of the Second World War on US national identity and the institutions that support the nation. This is a period in which the nation-state and its authority was not questioned and the public was in an unprecedented position to take advantage of educational opportunities as the federal government

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supported the extension of access to higher learning. The next chapter, “Dualities and Challenges: Higher Education in the Heart of the Cold War, 1953–1969”, contends with how the institutions responded and settled into the new role of supporting more Americans after the Second World War and how debates resulting from Cold War tensions impacted curricula and institutional purpose, challenging institutions to the core of their missions. After two periods of unprecedented growth and debated purpose of and among institutional types of higher education, in “Servicing the Public and the Marketplace for National Growth, 1970–1989”, the institution responded to the demand for colleges and universities to be service institutions—this resulted from a focus on the need to infuse the economy through each institution type’s best suited means, commodities of either knowledge or human capital. The commoditized institutional expectations next related to individual social mobility. In “Capital Gains and Higher Education: The Entrepreneurial University and the Community College as Facilitator of American Social Mobility in the 1990s”, the role of tertiary institutions in the neoliberal state is established, and the transition of higher education as a public good to an institution that responds directly to the market is discovered. The final two chapters contend with current challenges for institutions of higher education and how the various institution types will respond to national needs in the twenty-first century. In “Human Capital and Market Commodities: Higher Education’s Role in the Twenty-First Century”, the challenges regarding access and equity in higher education in the context of very obvious socio-economic pigeonholing of students and graduates are highlighted. In the twenty-first century, marginalized and underrepresented populations are still not provided the same opportunity for a higher education or social mobility, preventing entire groups from experiencing the American dream. This is an evolving context that does not appear to have a solution in the near term as the final chapter in the work addresses the position of higher education in the present administration, “Higher Education in the Era of Trump: Considering the Ambiguous Future of Tertiary Higher Education in a ‘New American Moment’”, as higher education is scrutinized and suffering under the Trump presidency. As with every historical juncture shaped with significant challenges— whether it be war, economic crises, social crises, political or ethical crises, or some combination thereof—higher education is challenged to respond to the needs of the nation. In the present context, this means that higher education has to find a balance between serving the public it wishes to

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provide knowledge and training for, the historically excluded populations still yearning for opportunities to expand their education, the neoliberal knowledge based economy and the constant market fluctuations, and a nation that is sharply divided on social, political, ethical, moral, and economic issues and values that has not been experienced at this volatile and far-reaching levels in decades. The nation needs to educate its public to preserve the identity of superiority, however that is defined, to secure a nation of peace and prosperity among nations. This has always been the goal of the United States, and it has always been the expectation that all social institutions would support this place among nations. For democracy to survive and thrive, the people of the United States have to be given the opportunity to pursue knowledge, regardless of their economic station in our tertiary society, and in doing so, work toward a more just and free society.

References Anderson, B. (2006). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso. Apple, M.  W. (2004). Ideology and Curriculum (3rd ed.). New  York: Routledge Falmer. Ayers, D.  F. (2005). Neoliberal Ideology in Community College Mission Statements: A Critical Discourse Analysis. The Review of Higher Education, 28(4), 527–549. Ayers, D. F. (2012). From Governance to Competitiveness: A Diachronic Analysis of the Community College Discourse of Local. Critical Discourse Studies, 10(1), 99–116. Ballantine, J. H., & Spade, J. Z. (2001). Schools and Society: A Sociological Approach to Education. New York: Wadsworth. Baptiste, I. (2001). Pedagogical Implications of Human Capital Theory. Adult Education Quarterly, 51(3), 184–201. Bloom, A. (1987). The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Democracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today’s Students. New  York: Simon and Schuster. Brint, S., & Karabel, J. (1991). Institutional Origins and Transformations: The Case of American Community Colleges. In W. W. Powell & P. J. DiMaggio (Eds.), The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis (pp.  337–360). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Campbell, K. K., & Jamieson, K. H. (2008). Presidents creating the presidency: Deeds done in words. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

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Cohen, A. M., & Brawer, F. B. (2008). The American Community College (5th ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. D’Souza, D. (1991). Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus. New York: The Free Press. Dougherty, K.  J. (1994). The Contradictory College: The Conflicting Origins, Impacts, and Futures of the Community College. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Dougherty, K. J., & Townsend, B. K. (2006). Community College Missions: A Theoretical and Historical Perspective. New Directions for Community Colleges, 136, 5–13. Duryea, E. D. (2000). Evolution of University Organization. In M. C. I. Brown (Ed.), Organization & Governance in Higher Education (5th ed., pp. 3–15). Boston: Pearson Custom Publishing. Fairclough, N. (2003). Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London: Routledge Press. Freire, P. (1967/1976). Education: The Practice of Freedom. London: Writers and Readers Publishing Cooperative. Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Continuum. Geiger, R.  L. (2005). The Ten Generations of American Higher Education. In P.  G. Altbach, R.  O. Berdahl, & P.  A. Gumport (Eds.), American Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century: Social, Political, and Economic Challenges (2nd ed., pp. 38–70). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Gildersleeve, R. M., Kuntz, Pasque, P. A., & Carducci, R. (2010). The role of critical inquiry in (Re)constructing the public agenda for higher education: Confronting the conservative modernization of the academy. The Review of Higher Education, 34(1), 85–121. Habermas, (1962). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Harvey, D. (1996). Justice, nature, and the geography of difference. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. Hutchins, R. (1944). The THREAT to American Education. Colliers, 114, 20–21. Illich, I. (1971). Deschooling Society. New York: Harper and Row Publishing. Jessop, B. (2002). The Future of the Capitalist State. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Jessop, B., Fairclough, N., & Wodak, R. (2008). Education and the Knowledge-­ Based Economy in Europe. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Kezar, A. (2004). Obtaining Integrity? Reviewing and Examining the Charter Between Higher Education and Society. Review of Higher Education, 27, 429–450. Labaree, D. F. (1990). From Comprehensive High School to Community College: Politics, Markets, and the Evolution of Educational Opportunity. In R. G. Corwin (Ed.), Research on Sociology of Education and Socialization (Vol. 9, pp. 203–240). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.

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Levin, J. S. (2000). The Revised Institution: The Community College Mission at the End of the Twentieth Century. Community College Review, 28(1), 1–25. Lyotard, J. F. (1984). The postmodern condition: A report on knowledge. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Newson, J., & Buchbinder, H. (1988). The University Means Business: Universities, Corporations, and Academic Work. Toronto, ON: Garamond Press. Noblit, G.  W., & Pink, W.  T. (1995). Mapping the Alternative Paths of the Sociology of Education. In W. T. Pink & G. W. Noblit (Eds.), Continuity and Contradiction (pp. 1–29). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Olssen, M. & Peters, M. A. (2005). Neoliberalism, higher education and the knowledge economy: From the free market to knowledge capitalism. Journal of Education Policy, 20(3), 313–345. Palmadessa, A.  L. (2014). Higher Education and the Discursive Construction of American National Identity, 1946–2013. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro. Palmadessa, A.  L. (2017a). America’s College Promise: Situating President Obama’s Initiative in the History of Federal Higher Education Aid and Access Policy. Community College Review, 45(1), 52–70. Palmadessa, A.  L. (2017b). American National Identity, Policy Paradigms, and Higher Education: A History of the Relationship between Higher Education and the United States, 1862–2015. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Reisigl, M. & Wodak, R. (2009). The Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA). In Wodak, R. & Meyer, M., Eds. (2009). Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Sage. Schram, S. F, & Neisser, P. T. (1997). Tales of the state: Narrative in contemporary U.S. politics and public policy. Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield. Schugurensky, D. (2006). The Political Economy of Higher Education in the Time of Global Markets: Whither the Social Responsibility of the University? In R.  A. Rhoads & C.  A. Torres (Eds.), The University, State, and Market: The Political Economy of Globalization in the Americas (pp.  301–320). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Schultz, T. W. (1961). Investment in Human Capital. American Economic Review, 1(2), 1–17. Serviceman’s Readjustment Act. (1944). PL 346 Ch. 268 S. 1767. Slaughter, S., & Leslie, L. (1997). Academic Capitalism: Politics, Policy, and Academic Capitalism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Thelin, J. R. (2011). A History of American Higher Education. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Weis, L., McCarthy, C., & Dimitriadis, G. (2006). Ideology, Curriculum, and the New Sociology of Education: Revisiting the Work of Michael Apple. New  York: Routledge.

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White, J. K. (1997). The storyteller in chief: Why presidents like to tell tales. In S. F. Schram and P. T. Neisser, Eds. Tales of the state: Narrative in contemporpry U.S. politics and public policy. Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield. Wodak, R. & Fairclough, N. (2010). Recontextualizing European higher education policies: The cases of Austria and Romania. Critical Discourse Studies, 7(1), 19–40. Zusman, A. (2005). Challenges Facing Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century. In P. G. Altbach, R. O. Berdahl, & P. A. Gumport (Eds.), American Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century: Social, Political, and Economic Challenges (2nd ed., pp. 71–90). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

CHAPTER 2

Preserving and Promoting Democracy: University Demands and the Importance of the Community College in Post-War America, 1946–1953 The immediate post-Second World War era is one of great significance for the United States. It is a time when the power of the nation-state was not questioned, the economy was secure, and people were in a position to take advantage of the educational opportunities offered and supported by federal legislation. As the undisputed leader of the free world, the United States bore the duty of preparing the next generation to maintain this position in the international hierarchy. Although social and cultural dynamics changed during the war whether considering veterans’ returning home, lives lost, and women working in factories, one constant concern at the forefront of first President Roosevelt, then President Truman, was that the American education system needed to be able to meet the needs of this new world order if the next generation could be expected to keep the United States at the helm of world affairs. If the United States could do this was not a question; the United States saved the West from radical ideologies; therefore, the United States was capable of teaching, maintaining, and spreading democracy. President Roosevelt gave the United States the first opportunity to make the importance of education for all citizens a reality with the GI Bill, or the Serviceman’s Readjustment Act of 1944. The GI Bill was meant to ease the return to civilian life for veterans of war. Coming back to a new social fabric, one that changed gender dynamics in the workforce, that converted factories that made consumer goods into facilities that supported the war machine, was going to be a difficult challenge for © The Author(s) 2020 A. L. Palmadessa, Higher Education Divided, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50746-6_2

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servicemen and women. Thus, the GI Bill gave veterans the opportunity to pursue higher education as a means to prepare them for the future, and also the changing industrial, technical, and functional needs of the nation, in addition to other supports for housing and other basic needs. The opportunity to go to college on federal money was not one to pass up. The result of this provision in the legislation facilitated the largest growth in student attendance to that point in US history. Given this influx, institutions of higher learning were going to have to adapt. Adaptations of housing, availability of space, student services and supports not needed before, all had to be created and very quickly. Not only did the sheer number of students impact the function and needs of institutions, but the new world had to be addressed and, most importantly, understood. This meant a revision in curriculum, a renewed focus on understanding history, and a new means to prepare the next generation to lead. This was no simple task; institutions of higher learning were embedded in tradition, taught by experts in their respective fields, and were slow to change and adapt. For higher education to meet the charge to prepare the next generation to lead, and to preserve the status of the United States as world leader, the President and the federal government needed to outline the expectations and define the level of support that could be offered. Higher education was thus charged with educating active, engaged, and contributing citizens in the United States, all while managing the incredible influx of students. Exacerbating and supporting this influx of students was the Truman Commission Report, Higher Education for American Democracy (1947). It was in this document that the social role of higher education in the United States was defined, and perhaps, equally important, the junior college’s role was defined and the institution re-­ named the community college, positioning the colleges to serve specific areas. It was during these formative post-War and early Cold War years that higher education was called to recreate and support the national agenda, forcing the tertiary institutions to stake their, and their students’, claim in the socio-economic hierarchy by defining the potential market position of graduates based on policy and practice. The dominant national identity in the first five years after the Second World War was defined by the US position as the nation that led the Allies to victory and in doing so, saved the Western world from extremist ideologies and cemented the superiority of democratic governments and capitalist markets (Palmadessa, 2014). It became the duty of the United States to

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demonstrate to a war-torn world that democracy survived the calamities of war, that capitalism facilitated growth and stability and therefore freedom, and the social institutions that supported the nation’s people were the most important facilitators of national success. As a result, the Truman administration considered how higher education could serve the nation as the new undisputed world leader and train the people of the Republic to preserve democratic idealism and support market success. To do this, a special committee was formed to create a plan to best use one of the nation’s most precious institutions—colleges and universities—to solidify American superiority.

President Truman, 1946–1953 In 1946, President Truman created a special Commission on higher education to assist the nation in its recovery from the Second World War and as a means to prepare a new generation of leaders. After the Serviceman’s Readjustment Act of 1944 (GI Bill) was introduced, war veterans had added incentive to seek higher education. The result was an incredible influx of students, overwhelming the nation’s higher education institutions’ capacity. The Truman Commission was charged with studying the challenges and offering a plan to serve the new influx of students (Palmadessa, 2014). The resulting seven-part report, Higher Education for American Democracy (1947), made recommendations regarding curriculum and facilities, finances and administration, and the increase in focus on the community college as a means to educate more students. All institutions were expected to follow the criteria of preserving democracy and training leaders; the community college, a new name for the junior college introduced in the Commission’s report, was the mechanism by which rural, home-bound, or economically disadvantaged students could attain an education to prepare them for a participative role in the post-War society. President Truman noted his support of higher education and its purpose after the war by the appointment of this Commission, charged with the duty of addressing the immediate needs of higher education as campuses were flooded with students and curricular adaptations, missions, and the relationship to the federal government were questioned and noted as in need of revision (Palmadessa, 2017a). President Truman, in addition to and in support of the Commission’s report, carefully outlined his perspective on the role higher education was to play in the post-War world. In the appointment letter to members of

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the Commission, Truman presented higher education as an institution with an important social role in the post-War world and that the “functions of higher education in our democracy” (Truman, 1946, para. 2) were not simply a focus of his administration, but an institution worthy of national support. Chairman of the Commission Zook, in the transmission letter of Volume I of the report, echoed the President’s perspective that higher education was imperative to the post-War nation, stating “the future role of higher education … is so closely identified with the welfare of our country and the world” (Zook, 1947, para. 3). Zook re-interpreted the President’s charge to facilitate higher education’s position as a tool for the advancement of democracy, considering the support of four-year institutions and the growth of “intermediate technical institutes” (Truman, 1946, para. 4), later named community colleges in the report. Resulting from the Truman Commission Report, Higher Education for American Democracy (1947), the community college was conceptualized as a means to meet the needs of not only veterans but also potential students in rural communities and other underrepresented populations that understood and sought the benefit of higher education. Truman (1950a, 1950b) explained: Large numbers of young people and adults wish to continue their education beyond high school in order to prepare for entrance to professional schools, to receive additional technical or vocational training or to round out their general education. For many of our people, postsecondary education on a part-time or full-time basis, provided in institutions located within commuting distance of home, would meet their needs at low cost. Several of the States are now developing community institutions for this purpose. I have asked the Federal Security Administrator to make a comprehensive study of this development in order to determine whether the Federal Government might appropriately take any action to encourage the States and localities to establish and expand “community colleges.” Primarily because of low family incomes and of the high costs involved, more than half of our young people who could benefit from a college education are now unable to attend. This failure to develop to the fullest extent the capacities of our young people is a matter of national concern. As a step toward correcting this situation, I shall transmit to the Congress a legislative proposal to authorize a limited Federal program to assist capable youth who could not otherwise do so to pursue their desired fields of study at the institutions of their choice. (Paras. 227–228)

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The concept of the community college provided an option not only for returning veterans who wanted to live at home, but for individuals who were not under the Serviceman’s Readjustment Act of 1944 (GI Bill), who wanted access to higher learning that could not afford a university education, or who wanted to be away from home. President Truman understood this need, as represented in the statement above, that there were capable, talented people in the United States that could not afford to attend a four-year college; he argued this segment of American society could not be ignored and should be provided the opportunity to continue their education, regardless of income. Even though the term community college was coined by the Truman Commission in 1947, the connection of the institution to the community and the potential value of this relationship was not a common focus of presidential attention again until the 1960s. However, as will be noted throughout this study, presidents did define the university’s role in the nation-state and in doing so crafted a legacy for the university to assume, outside or even separate from its counterpart, the community college.

Recontextualizing the Identity of the Democratic World Leader Higher education and its connection to national success was brought to the forefront of public thought first through the GI Bill of 1944 and in 1947 by the Truman Commission Report. The GI Bill facilitated the rapid growth of institutions by providing access to service members and their families, creating a new-found visibility in the public arena. The influx of students and public recognition of higher education prompted the Truman Commission and its charge to determine how to support higher education through this transition. The Commission’s report outlined the federal perspective as to how higher education could meet the charge. It was up to the respective institutions to interpret how to meet the goals and expectations, and also how to tackle the difficult transitions that would be necessary to preserve and promote democracy. The Junior/Community College  One of the most impactful suggestions of the Truman Commission Report was the call to establish more two-year institutions and to transition these institutions from a perceived junior status to a community-focused institution. The result was the rapid

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expansion of community colleges and systems throughout the United States and a change in name from junior college to community college, facilitating a shift in mission and focus of many of the already established two-year colleges. Although changing the name did not immediately influence formerly accepted perceptions of the institution as inferior to the four-year counterpart, it was a step in challenging this misinterpretation and preparing the two-year college to take its place in the higher education hierarchy, as the two-year institution determined appropriate. With the federal focus on two-year colleges, credibility was supported and institutional leaders were poised to meet the demand. The nation’s two-year junior and community colleges were acutely aware of the role the Truman Commission expected the institution to fulfill. The expectation of the newest institution type of higher learning in the United States, and a uniquely American institution, was to meet the demand of increased student enrollment and also an adaptation to the post-War needs of the nation, politically, socially, and economically. Before the war, the junior colleges were established to provide the first two years of college for able students who could not afford to leave home to attend a university and/or to train workers to meet the demands of the local economy; the inclusion of both of these goals was ultimately contested and in some areas one surpassed the other as the ultimate mission of individual institutions. Now, the two-year colleges that evolved out of an experiment to increase access on a minimal scale will be expected to respond at the same rate as their better-funded public counterparts, the four-year colleges and universities. The willingness to adapt to these new demands is exhibited throughout the Junior College Journal after the publication of Higher Education for American Democracy (1947). In 1950, Stickler and Stokes discussed how higher education can respond to the national call for direct involvement in the preservation of democracy and, ultimately, assist in securing the US position as a superior nation-state. The authors posit that higher education is part of the “national tradition” (Stickler & Stoakes, 1950, p. 391) as the success of the nation and democracy depends on education as it is the duty of schools to prepare citizens to assume their roles in a democracy, something that can happen only if the nation provides the education and supports those who are willing and able to pursue educational opportunity. Providing access to able students is essential to the success of the nation: “We can no longer restrict college education to potential scholars,

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to students planning to enter professions, or to the economically favored. Post-high school education for all who can benefit from it must be regarded as the prerogative of the American citizen and the obligation of the American nation” (Stickler & Stoakes, 1950, p. 391). This response to the importance of the community college in providing opportunity for those who do not fit the traditional four-year college student profile is distinctly reflective of President Truman’s position that all who are willing and have the ability, should pursue higher education. For this to happen, junior colleges needed to be established in areas that have recognized need, locations that have able potential students who are economically disadvantaged. If junior colleges are to democratize education, they must be built to meet the greatest need and must also provide the programs appropriate to the citizens of that community (Bishop, 1950). In meeting the needs of communities, the junior college is serving society as a whole; providing the individual with the appropriate education in a time of crisis after the war is a benefit to all people. Zook, author of the Truman Commission Report and Chairman of the Truman Commission on Higher Education, wrote in The Junior College Journal in 1950 that the context of the years after the war was the most important in human history. He argued that civilization had prevailed through this horrific event and it was the duty of the nation and education to preserve civilization, with a focus on democratic ideas. Zook charged readers to continue to focus on the individual needs in the junior college’s communities as what is good for an individual is good for all of society—“this way of life [is called] Democracy” (1950, 524)—and every person, regardless of color or race or ability, should be educated in a democracy. For this democratic way of life to persist, according to Zook (1950), individuals must be educated to be participants in the democracy, to understand where the United States stands in relationship to its formidable ideological opponents, and to strive to reach their highest level of potential in their private, public, and work lives. Democracy could not persist, be preserved, or progress without making higher education attainable to all individuals, as it is the sum of those individuals that support the United States in its position of world leader, and prevents outside opposing forces to influence the people of the nation. If individuals with the capacity and desire to learn are educated to preserve and participate in democracy, this will secure the nation’s economic status. The two-fold purpose of the junior college is of utmost importance in the quest to support economic stability. Economic stability and the

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demonstration of the success of capitalism were especially influential in maintaining a dominant status and controlling the interaction with other nations. For the US economy to succeed, local economies had to be supported by a well-trained and educated workforce. The ability of the junior college to respond to community-specific workforce needs makes it the ideal institution to bolster local economies which in turn support state and national economic success. Therefore, the community and junior colleges need to be flexible in adapting curricula to meet demand and also strive to educate students to not only learn a skill or a field but understand the connection of their training and work to the larger, national economy. Turner (1950) argues that one of the core purposes of the community college is to prepare graduates for jobs as he posits that “[a] job and a career mean that the student is going to be a functioning unit in the economic structure of contemporary America” (p. 94). Students must approach the job realm not just for employment but to understand and confront the problems that need to be addressed in the US economic system so that they can be active participants in a democracy, ultimately accepting and adapting to the responsibility to make society better (Turner, 1950). Thus it is through training and education that individuals not only contribute to the economic welfare of the nation but, in their work environments, learn how to challenge and improve social dynamics in the post-War world. Colleges and Universities Four-year colleges and universities were overwhelmed by the influx of students after the war. The facilities were not adequate, there were significant curricular revisions that had to be negotiated, and the students arrived to colleges with more personal needs than ever before. Institutions had to find a way to meet the demands of the sheer number, new curricular expectations, and the needs of post-War students as quickly as possible. The Truman Commission Report addressed the facilities’ needs with financial analyses and suggestions, but most importantly, the report suggested curricular revisions focused on international understanding and democratic idealism, and called for greater student support. The report set the stage for debate among faculty to meet curricular demands and ordered administrators to grow and adapt to meet the needs of the nation. The post-War sense of superiority was alternately met with fear—fear of another war, atomic weapons, and the expansion of communism. This was evident in publications regarding the purpose of four-year institutions as

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writers addressed this duality, pointing to the ways that colleges and universities could support the democratic ideal and also how they could combat fear and/or support a future war effort. In 1949, Hendel noted the emphasis on education as a tool to perpetuate democracy by “cementing our cultural unity” through training people to be loyal to the democratic system to fend off communism (473). The concept of protecting democracy by deterring communism is closely linked to the social responsibility of teaching citizens to be actively engaged. As Liston argued in 1948, institutions of higher education have a social responsibility that, in an “Atomic Age”, ties higher education to the social needs of the nation, and if ignored, democracy will ultimately fail (p.  268). To keep democracy from failing, “colleges must be propagandists for the intellectual and spiritual qualities that will enable free men to live out their lives in a world of justice and peace”—democracy depends on this (Turck, 1946, p.  335). The idealized democracy as one of peace and perfection was a dominant perception post-War. Compared to the radical ideological opposition, it was an acceptable perception to most, even though the United States was far from fair and perfect in the post-War world. As President Truman argued, the availability of higher education and the appropriate revisions of curricula were steps to fulfilling the desire for the ideal democratic state, contrasted against the feared regimes in the East. Democracy’s dependence on an educated citizenry positions higher education as the arbiter of scholarly knowledge, morals, and values (Day, 1946a; Miller, 1947). The social responsibility of scholarship includes “interpreting to the great public the meaning of scientific truth and upholding for the great public to see the values of integrity and justice and brotherly kindness. Scholarship cannot act like a hermit when it throws things around that might destroy the world”; scholars have to attend to the social responsibility of interpreting knowledge so that average citizens can understand the value of knowledge and become “a propoagandist for the values of truth and democracy without which no united world is possible” (Turck, 1946, p.  335–336). In doing so, education shapes “the heart and mind of mankind” in the new world (Day, 1946b, p.  338), influencing the goal of creating “a mind for the world’s body” (Taylor, 1946, p. 46). The image of the world as one body after the war is a consistent theme in The Bulletin from 1946 to 1950. This metaphor supports the concept of the United States as the undisputed leader, positions democracy as the superior system, and calls upon the citizenry to adjust and adapt to this new-found role as representatives of this democratic

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ideal. Day addresses this concept in 1946: “It is the full strength of all the American people that must be bent to the task of bringing health, prosperity, justice and peace to all this one-world of ours” (p. 174). Part of the new world order was defined by the interdependence of nations. After the war, nations could no longer be isolationist. There would be interaction in some way—whether it be economic, social, or political, the world was forever connected. This meant that people had to be educated to interact and consider the consequences of interactions. The scholarship produced by the academy had to not only support progress but also be available to the public as consumers of knowledge charged with preserving the superiority of the state. To facilitate the preservation of democracy and the appropriate education for engaged citizenship, Hoor warns that colleges and universities cannot focus on economy, efficiency, and standardization as a means to support the nation as that leads to a “tendency to lose sight of the fact that these ends must after all be subordinated to the ultimate purposes of education, and more particularly, to those of education in a democracy” (1946, p.  207). Conversely, Liston argues in 1948 that the connection between the social responsibility of higher education to democracy is inextricably linked to the nation’s economic stability. In short, throughout its history, higher education has adapted to the needs and demands of the economy and in doing so, supports democracy. Liston wrote, “The fall or survival of economic systems is highly correlated with the extent to which the welfare of the masses is provided for by the system” (1948, p. 265). With every change and request to serve the public, higher education has responded with “the creation of knowledge through research, the dissemination of knowledge, and the training of leaders to carry on” (Liston, 1948, p. 267). Thus, students not only needed access to institutions to be taught, but the knowledge gained and produced had to be implemented.

Differentiated Expectations After the Second World War Two- and four-year institutions of higher education had very different expectations and directives to support the United States after the Second World War and, as a result, also had varied understandings of how to meet those demands. This is reflected in the previous analysis of how two- and four-year institutions facilitated and understood the call to preserve

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democracy, engage citizens, and support the economy. Furthermore, the divided understanding is a recreation of the social class divisions in the United States prevalent in the post-War era as the institutional purposes are indicative of the socio-economic position of its constituency. Preservation of Democracy  President Truman’s dedication to preserving democracy is undeniable. He charged the Commission with determining a plan of action for higher education to adapt to the nation’s post-War needs—to educate the American people to embody democratic values so that the nation’s superior status would remain unquestioned well beyond the post-War period. If the United States was to be the world leader and the ideal state that all nations should strive to be, the institutions that prepared individuals to active participants in the democracy had to adapt and support the concept of the nation as superior, protecting a free people through economic success (Palmadessa, 2017b). The junior college began its transition to community college after the war, facilitating its local focus. This meant that programs were to directly respond to local needs, and also to continue the broader transfer process, meeting the needs of those seeking job training and students who wanted to stay home for the first two years of college, for varied reasons. As a now expected embedded member of the community, the colleges were charged with not only educating the enrolled students but making sure that there was a community connection that exhibited democratic practices. This was to be intentional and targeted, demonstrating why the two-year college was in fact dedicated to the community in which they were built. With the Truman administration’s support and call, more two-year colleges were built to serve more individuals and communities, making the duty of preserving democracy through education a more attainable institutional goal. The four-year colleges and universities understood their position in the democratic ideal as the institution responsible for training leaders for the free world. This training would position graduates to lead in the United States, would influence and understand the world around them, and would teach the appropriate morals and values in a world that grew smaller after the Second World War. With the support of the Truman Commission Report, Higher Education for American Democracy (1947), the four-year colleges and universities expanded their offerings and spaces to adapt to

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the needs of students attending through the GI Bill, offering this education for democracy to more citizens and future leaders. Citizenship Literacy  Patriotic fervor began during the Second World War and continued throughout the immediate post-War era, fueling the anti-­ communist position of the nation and its people. To be sure that President Truman’s democratic ideal was preserved, people had to be educated to exercise their civic duties to maintain the US position among nations. Thus, Truman’s charge to teach a nation to be a democratic beacon required that institutions train students to engage in the responsibility of supporting their communities. The duty to respond to community needs creates a unique connection between the community college, the students, and the community at large. Not only are the community colleges serving students from the community, those students are engaging in their campus then taking what they learn to the community. The call to serve a specific locale readily facilitates students to be active in their location, through civic engagement and work, requiring community colleges to prepare them to be active citizens. Thus, this becomes embedded in the purpose of the two-year colleges—to teach community member-students to be engaged citizens in their immediate community. In contrast, the four-year colleges and universities are expected to teach students to be global citizens, to recognize that how they engage as citizens of and in their own country influences the success of other nations. Furthermore, the four-year students are trained to be leaders who will exhibit the morals and values synonymous with democratic idealism, all as a means to influence the national and international contexts in opposition to ideological extremes that challenge the American way of life. Economic Stability After the Second World War, the US economy was thriving. Truman understood that the technological advances during the war, albeit mostly for the war machine, would alter the nature of production and the demand for goods. To keep the United States at the forefront of this economic shift and position as undisputed economic superpower, President Truman expected higher education to adapt by focusing on preparing a workforce to implement the innovative practices and products, and also to foster the intellectual capacity of students to create new knowledge.

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The purpose of the community college to preserve democracy through community connections and preparing literate citizens through applicable education is tied directly to the institution’s role regarding economic stability. This allows the two-year college to assure the community’s industrial and workforce needs are addressed, prepared for students to flood the hallways through the GI Bill, coming full circle when graduates either went to work in their field of choice or transferred to a four-year institution. These related purposes support the economic cycle of the educated citizen who supports democracy by participating in the economic system. The four-year institution’s participation in the economic stability of the nation is facilitated by the creation of knowledge and the understanding that democracy and the citizens of that democracy will only succeed if the economy is stable. As noted in the excerpts from The Bulletin, the university has historically responded to the social needs of the nation, which are directly linked to the needs of the economic system. In this arrangement, students and faculty are producing goods demanded—whether that be war-time weapons or consumer products—through the quest for knowledge relevant in the new world order. Not only will the four-year students produce for the market, they will lead in the businesses and industries that distribute those goods, giving these graduates a specific position in the socio-economic hierarchy.

Implementation of Purpose Although the understanding of the three main purposes of higher education—preserving democracy, educating citizens, and supporting economic security—varied between institution types in the post-War era, there is little indication of difference in how the institutions implemented the called for changes. Democracy was preserved through the implementation of policy from the national to state to local levels, citizens were educated and engaged in how they could positively contribute to their world on multiple scales through curricular adaptations and campus activities, and the economic expectations were met through clear indications of purpose by institution types—two-year institutions focused on providing two years of education that would help any able student, and four-year institutions focused on providing an education that would prepare future leaders, regardless of vocational choice. President Truman’s idealized state was supported by higher education’s implementation of policies and curricular revisions that purported the

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American identity of superiority, protecting freedom through economic advancement, facilitated by higher education. Keeping the nation at the forefront of advancing technologies and teaching individuals to actively participate in their democracy for the benefit of all of the nation’s members were the purpose and duty of all colleges and universities. However, the divisions within American society based on socio-economic status were evidenced in the vocational outcome for graduates; although the American democracy was ideal, it was not experienced equally by all. This would only be further exacerbated by tensions and warfare in the next period of American history, the apex of the Cold War, the 1960s.

Preparing for the Cold War After President Truman, Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson would be charged with negotiating a new world, encumbered with fear of atomic warfare. The Cold War tensions that began at the close of the Second World War resulted in numerous conflicts and most notably, in the 1960s, the controversial armed conflict in Vietnam. This conflict challenged the status of the United States, questioning the superiority of a nation that not only engaged in a military endeavor outside of their borders, but did so knowing the implications for the balance of power and perceptions synonymous with ideologically driven warfare. Preservation of democracy in the context of a politicized war abroad, social unrest at home resulting from the Civil Rights Movement, the assassination of a beloved President, and counter-cultural movements made for a difficult period in national and institutional history. It was in this context that higher education, the institution called to preserve and promote the American way of life, was challenged, with critics demanding for an explanation of value and benefit to the public good.

References Bishop, C. (1950). Inventory. Junior College Journal, 20(9), 501–504. Day, E.  E. (1946a). Our Responsibilities to Victory. American Association of Colleges Bulletin, 32(2), 173–175. Day, E. E. (1946b). Notes on the Reorientation of Liberal Education. American Association of Colleges Bulletin, 32(3), 338–346. Hendel, C.  W. (1949). Democracy and Freedom  – A Problem for Education. American Association of Colleges Bulletin, 35(4), 461–476.

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Hoor, M.  T. (1946). The Administration of Public Higher Education in a Democracy. American Association of Colleges Bulletin, 32(2), 202–215. Liston, H. (1948). Higher Education and Social Responsibility. American Association of Colleges Bulletin, 34(2), 265–271. Miller, J. H. (1947). The Responsibility of the Educated in These Times. American Association of Colleges Bulletin, 33(4), 593–602. Palmadessa, A.  L. (2014). Higher Education and the Discursive Construction of American National Identity, 1946–2013. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro. Palmadessa, A.  L. (2017a). America’s College Promise: Situating President Obama’s Initiative in the History of Federal Higher Education Aid and Access Policy. Community College Review, 45(1), 52–70. Palmadessa, A.  L. (2017b). American National Identity, Policy Paradigms, and Higher Education: A History of the Relationship between Higher Education and the United States, 1862–2015. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. President’s Commission on Higher Education. (1947). Higher Education for American Democracy. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers. Stickler, W. H., & Stoakes, J. P. (1950). General Education: Answer to a Challenge. Junior College Journal, 20(7), 390–398. Taylor, H. (1946). The Uses of Education. The Association of American Colleges Bulletin, 32(1), 46–53. Truman, H. S. (1946). Letter of Appointment of Commission Members. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Truman, H. S. (1950a, January 6). Annual Message to the Congress: The President’s Economic Report. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=13732 Truman, H. S. (1950b, January 4). Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http:// www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=13567 Turck, C. J. (1946). The Colleges and the New World. American Association of Colleges Bulletin, 32(3), 335–337. Turner, C.  E. (1950). Industrial Training in Junior Colleges. Junior College Journal, 21(2), 63–71. Zook, G. F. (1947). Letter of Transmittal: The President’s Commission on Higher Education. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Zook, G. F. (1950). Education – What for? Junior College Journal, 20(7), 523–530.

CHAPTER 3

Dualities and Challenges: Higher Education in the Heart of the Cold War, 1953–1969

After the great influx of students in the late 1940s and the positioning of the importance of higher education to presidential agendas, in the 1950s four- and two-year institutions settled in to their new roles and worked to define what their identity should be and how to create curricula and campuses to serve their intended populations. Complicating the understanding of what the curriculum should focus on was the launch of Sputnik in 1957 and the resulting National Defense Education Act of 1958 that charted a new course for American education and created a sense of distrust in the system from the public. This facilitated debates among and across institutions as to what their key purpose and identity should be, to be havens of academic inquiry, to support personal or national economic growth, or to be positioned as a means for social transformation. These debates further exacerbated the division in the social outcomes for students as representations of the bifurcated national identity that persisted in the United States from the 1950s to the early 1970s. In addition to these debates and challenges, the role of higher education in social mobility was further complicated by the Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA 1965). The HEA 1965 was intended to increase access for students who otherwise would likely not pursue an education beyond compulsory requirements. Although a notable and valiant move by the federal government to support President Kennedy’s civil rights legacy and President Johnson’s Great Society initiative, it did not resolve the dualities, challenges, or barriers to access for underserved and underrepresented populations. This © The Author(s) 2020 A. L. Palmadessa, Higher Education Divided, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50746-6_3

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will continue to be an issue in the next decades with periods of relief and attention to this socially divisive matter during presidencies focused on assuring more people have access to education if they choose and through institutional efforts to build upon those national trends. The early 1950s to the end of the 1960s mark the transition from fear of the communist threat to democracy to an all-encompassing Cold War that challenged democratic ideals to their core. It is also during this period that the cold relationships between Western democracy and the Eastern communist bloc swelled into dangerous, costly, deadly conflicts between militaries. The launch of Sputnik forced the space race into a prominent and costly project for the United States, a project that had the potential to create the most dangerous situation—weaponry in space—especially in the context of post-Korean War and tensions already heating up in Vietnam. Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson each had to navigate “hot” conflicts and “cold” tensions, and each had an expectation for higher education to fulfill its democratic purpose to educate citizens for active participation and to contribute to the growth of the national economy. To maintain superior status among nations, and not allow the communist USSR to supersede the democratic United States in any realm, education had to prepare citizens to preserve democracy and keep the communist threat at bay.

President Eisenhower, 1953–1961 President Eisenhower entered office after the nation’s first “hot” conflict in the Cold War, the Korean War, in which he served as General. Eisenhower’s war record was unmatched, serving in the Second World War and the Korean War. These experiences gave him a very unique perspective on what the United States was up against with the ideological rivals and the fragile balance of power. Having experience in the military was beneficial to a Cold War President who had to navigate avoidance of warfare and keeping the nation safe; it was also important for his understanding of how higher education could support soldiers returning from war reintegrate into civilian life, and also how citizens continuing their education was beneficial to the entire nation. President Eisenhower’s administration followed President Truman’s lead and sought to maintain the involvement of higher education in national success. This became extremely important as the USSR challenged US authority in 1957 with the launch of Sputnik. Not only did this

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represent a victory in science and technology for the USSR, but it raised questions as to the value and effectiveness of the US education system. US schools and colleges were criticized by the public and leadership as being ineffective and inferior to Soviet education. This was a particularly difficult position for research institutions and technical programs; it was their duty to develop technology for the nation and train citizens to create and support the technological advancement. In an effort to resolve this problem, the National Defense Education Act was passed in 1958 as Eisenhower sought to infuse America’s schools and colleges with federal money to improve teaching, learning, and research. It also included scholarships to support student-researchers for four years. The President argued this was a matter of national security. He stated: Our immediate national security aims – to continue to strengthen our armed forces and improve the weapons at their command – can be furthered only by the efforts of individuals whose training is already far advanced. But if we are to maintain our position of leadership, we must see to it that today’s young people are prepared to contribute the maximum to our future progress. Because of the growing importance of science and technology, we must necessarily give special – but by no means exclusive – attention to education in science and engineering.

This is a slight turn from President Truman’s call for higher education to preserve democracy through teaching international understanding, history, and politics. Instead, Eisenhower relegated preservation of democracy to security measures, in this case, the development of weapons. Not only did the technology need to be developed, but engineers had to be trained to service the new technology, creating not only a context in which more sophisticated weapons could be developed, but more jobs were created, requiring very specific higher education programs. Thus, President Eisenhower supported higher education as a means to promote economic advancement for the nation as he stated to university graduates at their commencement in 1960 that “[c]learly, you – you graduates who enjoy the blessings of higher education have a special responsibility to exercise leadership in helping others understand these problems” (para. 25). In this example, President Eisenhower asserts that college baccalaureate graduates are poised to lead in a society that consists of those who are educated and understand the world around them, and those who do not have an understanding or an education. The university has therefore

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prepared its graduates to shape the nation through their knowledge and superior status in life as a result of their education. As a supporter of higher education as a means to facilitate national success, President Eisenhower also addressed the need for community colleges in the United States. He stated in 1953, “Indeed, I firmly believe that more extensive education than that obtainable in high schools must be brought to every community and every locality in such a way that every young person regardless of his means or his lack of means can go to school for a minimum of 2 additional years” (p.  3, para. 21). Here President Eisenhower recognizes that there are potential contributors who may not be able to attend universities due to financial barriers. As he stated, the best way to address this issue was to make sure that any community with willing and able students had a community college. Thus, following his predecessor’s agenda, he called for local institutions of higher learning to provide two years of education after high school for those who desire it but cannot afford it.

President Kennedy, 1961–1963 President John F. Kennedy’s abbreviated term in office was focused on the social issues that dominated the minds of the American public and the areas of the world that were being challenged by ideological revolutionaries, namely Vietnam and Cuba. The Civil Rights Movement was gaining ground at home, the conflict in Vietnam was intensifying, Fidel Castro had successfully established a communist regime in Cuba, and the baby boom generation was coming of age, meaning that institutions of higher learning needed to prepare for another influx of students. To facilitate the success of the nation in this context, President Kennedy considered education a significant contributor to his agenda. He understood the value of higher education in teaching citizens to operate in a world plagued with unrest and inequality, and realized that without a focus on the value and importance of education at all levels, the USSR could again gain ground as they did with Sputnik. As a result, education at all levels became an integral part of Kennedy’s efforts to make the United States a more equal society, providing more and equitable opportunities for the people of the nation. President Kennedy focused on building community colleges as a means to educate people who otherwise would not have the opportunity to attend college; in other words, build community colleges in communities

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in which the population was too poor to afford a university education. He stated: The opportunity for a college education is severely limited for hundreds of thousands of young people because there is no college in their own community. Studies indicate that the likelihood of going to college on the part of a high school graduate who lives within 20–25 miles of a college is 50 percent greater than it is for the student who lives beyond commuting distance. This absence of college facilities in many communities causes an unfortunate waste of some of our most promising youthful talent. A demonstrated method of meeting this particular problem effectively is the creation of 2-year community colleges – a program that should be undertaken without delay and which will require Federal assistance for the construction of adequate facilities … I recommend, therefore, a program of grants to States for construction of public community junior colleges. (Kennedy, 1963, paras. 41–42)

In this case, the poorer populations should have higher education brought to them, in the form of community colleges, not four-year institutions. This does create an opportunity, but only one option, for this strata of society. Providing commutable education is needed for two additional years so that the graduates would be able to stay in their communities during and after education, keeping them in a social position by limiting their opportunities to those available. Alternatively, Kennedy differentiated the purpose of four-year institutions, arguing they were the answer to many of the nation’s challenges: Our colleges and universities represent our ultimate educational resource. In these institutions are produced the leaders and other trained persons whom we need to carry forward our highly developed civilization. If the colleges and universities fail to do their job, there is no substitute to fulfill their responsibility. The threat of opposing military and ideological forces in the world lends urgency to their task. But that task would exist in any case. (Kennedy, 1961, para. 18)

In this example, President Kennedy calls on college graduates to not simply understand their world but find ways to thwart the enemy and maintain national superiority. If citizens are properly educated, the nation is more secure and poised for the future. Not only could college or university graduates alleviate national challenges, particular, elite, institutions

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prepared graduates to take on additional national burdens. In this commencement address at Yale University, Kennedy proclaims the superior value of Yale graduates in this portion of his speech: I speak of these matters here at Yale because of the self-evident truth that a great university is always enlisted against the spread of illusion and on the side of reality. No one has said it more clearly than your President Griswold: “Liberal learning is both a safeguard against false ideas of freedom and a source of true ones.” Your role as university men, whatever your calling, will be to increase each new generation’s grasp of its duties. (Kennedy, 1962, para. 10)

In this case, the Yale graduate is to take on the burden of civic leader and mentor of future generations. Ultimately, universities are expected to provide civic leadership and cutting edge research; President Kennedy explains his expectation as follows: [T]he future of these young people and the Nation rests in large part on their access to college and graduate education. For this country reserves its highest honors for only one kind of aristocracy-that which the Founding Fathers called ‘an aristocracy of achievement arising out of a democracy of opportunity.’ (1963, para. 24)

In this reference to the Founding Fathers as a beacon of democratic success, Kennedy argues that the elite is formed out of the democratic experiment, and therefore, it is an important and valuable contribution of elite higher education to provide a segment of society deemed superior to others based upon the level of education received and from what type of institution. To further the focus on university education, and a service only the university could provide, Kennedy (1963) suggests that the “[e]xpansion of high quality graduate education and research in all fields is essential to national security and economic growth” (para. 47). Community colleges cannot experience this or answer the call as they are not equipped to deliver graduate education; if the two-year college cannot meet the demands of research and civic leadership, it is relegated to service industry and economic development, a position that places the institution in a subservient position to the university.

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President Johnson, 1963–1969 President Johnson, sworn in after the assassination of President Kennedy, continued the social endeavors that dominated the Kennedy agenda. Having been a teacher, President Johnson knew firsthand the power and influence of education on the youth of America. Additionally, he witnessed the challenges that plagued education regarding integration/desegregation, funding allocations, preparation for secondary students who desired higher learning, and the accessibility of higher education. As a result, education would be a primary focus of Johnson’s social program, the Great Society Program. The Johnson administration made its mark on higher education with the renowned Higher Education Act of 1965. Clearly an effort to expand access for populations previously otherwise excluded from higher education due to lack of financial resources, this promotes an idea of inclusion and equality, a foundation of Johnson’s Great Society program and the larger general social movement for civil rights in the United States in the 1960s. Whereas this act did offer more students a means to pay for college, it did not change the purpose of the universities and community colleges as described by President Johnson, and did not alter the unspoken hierarchy of privilege, or lack thereof, to attend particular ranks of tertiary institutions of higher education. Although he is lauded as a President who supported education and civil rights, his interpretation of institutional purpose indicates a lack of understanding of equity among students in their pursuit of self-improvement and social mobility as he clearly defines the role he expects two- and four-­ year institutions to fulfill. In early 1965, President Johnson stated his vision for community colleges. He states, “[v]ocational education must be more closely related to the demands of the modern world as well as to the opportunities for further training which will be afforded by the community college …” (Johnson, 1965, para. 8). President Johnson’s expectation of the community college to focus on developing workers for economic gains, not leaders for civil society, was reaffirmed in 1968: We must do more to improve vocational education programs. We must help high schools, vocational schools, technical institutes, and community colleges to modernize their programs, to experiment with new approaches to job training. Above all, we must build stronger links between the schools and their students, and local industries and employment services, so that

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education will have a direct relationship to the world the graduating student enters. (Para. 42)

Not only does this text sample relegate students of two-year colleges to vocational education only, it also exhibits the expectation that the two-­ year college student needs to be focused on the local community, training for a job that is needed in their immediate area, keeping them in their spatial, geographic location, which limits social mobility. In contrast to the limiting nature of the two-year program, at the University of Michigan commencement ceremony of 1964, President Johnson offered this advice to the new graduates as they emerge from higher education to take their rightful place in American society: Woodrow Wilson once wrote: “Every man sent out from his university should be a man of his Nation as well as a man of his time.” Within your lifetime, powerful forces, already loosed, will take us toward a way of life beyond the realm of our experience, almost beyond the bounds of our imagination. (Johnson, 1964, paras. 34–35)

The university graduates were given a charge to lead, not simply contribute to economic growth. By quoting President Wilson, Johnson not only uses the historical reference as a means of legitimation, but he quotes a former college president, one who was at the helm of one of America’s most prestigious colleges, Princeton. This indicates that the four-year graduates have a special duty to lead the nation. As Johnson added, the world was in precarious position in the Cold War and life was changing at a rapid pace—the educated class must lead the masses through the challenges of the future. Juxtaposed against the expectation for community college graduates to contribute to their local economies, President Johnson makes a clear distinction between the purpose of the university and the community college. This is rather ironic for an administration lauded for opening the doors of higher education to the masses through federal financial aid.

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Opposing Communism Through Access to Higher Education Building upon the 1947 call for higher education to purposely facilitate the preservation of democracy, the 1950s and 1960s needed social institutions to support the United States in its quest to combat communism and extreme ideologies more broadly. As a result, the purpose of higher education to not only buttress democracy but train citizens to engage and accept the responsibility to become educated to infuse the market with products and wealth was at the forefront of the Cold War agenda; the USSR had challenged American scientific knowledge with the launch of Sputnik, its economy had not collapsed, and the United States was engaged in conflicts to contain communism in Asia. To facilitate these goals, the federal government had to support increased access to higher education. As already begun by President Truman, there was support for the expansion of community colleges. However important and influential that expansion was and is, the Higher Education Act of 1965 opened the door to higher education for even more of America’s youth, a representation of the larger movement for America to equally support all of its citizens, regardless of race, ethnicity, or socio-economic status. Within this larger social context, the two- and four-year institutions focused less on the impetus to support democracy, but more on how to turn that ideal into action through curricular reforms, policies, and campus engagement. The Community College: The People’s College  Responding to the quest to serve more Americans through higher education as part of the national movement for civil rights, the community college highlights its historical mission to provide access by keeping costs low to eliminate financial barriers and building in communities in need of commutable higher learning. As a result, the title of “people’s college” (Ewing, 1955, p. 63) becomes synonymous with the two-year colleges. The confidence in the two-year institutions to fulfill this role is highlighted in 1961 in the Junior College Journal: “Our concern is with a part of education which is gaining increased recognition as an area that can supply to our national life a resource that can be a powerful force in our favor in this most crucial battle for survival between our way of life and those who oppose it. I refer to the almost unlimited and tremendous potential of the American junior college” (Littlefield, p. 483). Through this potential, the community college can change with the needs of the nation and “fulfill the political needs

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of democracy, but also the economic and social ones as well” (Littlefield, 1961b, p. 484). By simply increasing access to higher education, junior and community colleges democratize education by offering the opportunity for formally excluded populations to continue their education beyond high school. This is the best way to prevent the enemy which “seeks to destroy our way of life” by teaching in two-year colleges the knowledge and skills that prepare students for citizenship and help people develop good judgment and moral values (Littlefield, 1961b, 484–485). Littlefield (1961b) pointedly argues in the close of the article, “Our country, if it is to survive, can do with no less than the optimum potential of the two-year college” (p.  491). Placing the survival of the nation and its people on community colleges, Littlefield posits that educational institutions have an obligation to society that they are expected to facilitate. For community college graduates to become successful participants in democracy, curricular and extra-curricular activities must be appropriately designed to train students for this new role (Edinger, 1960). For students to properly engage in society and positively influence their communities, an appropriate general education program has to be developed to address the specific needs of the historical moment; this is the only way to ensure students will experience the benefits of democratic life (Hoeglund, 1961). But this cannot be the responsibility of the two-year colleges alone—the nation has to support the development of its citizens. Citizens are the greatest resources in democratic society and it is the duty of the nation to provide means for institutions to educate citizens to meet the needs of society (Johnson, 1961). This was most notably recognized, albeit controversially, when the USSR surpassed the United States in the space race with the launch of Sputnik. This caused the public to question the validity of American education and provided the legitimation of federal involvement in higher education (Rapp, 1961), as realized by the National Defense Education Act of 1958. In connection with the need for national support for two years of post-secondary education, a reciprocal benefit emerges—the contributions to the national welfare: “Progress, economic and cultural, can be realized if young people can be educated to become substantial, self-supporting citizens” (Stockwell & Feldman, 1961, p. 127). This implies that the two-year education results in a job with a livable wage, which ultimately contributes to the entire nation as each

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individual’s financial status contributes to the stability of the economy and thus the US position among nations. The nation’s economic prowess has to be supported through higher education (Neilan, 1963). In the context of the Cold War and the Civil Rights Movement, the United States could not afford to falter economically. Community colleges, the people’s colleges, provided access for more populations than any institution in tertiary higher education (Meany, 1964) and were most adept to respond to rapid change, technological demands, and industrial development (Adamson, 1955). The ability to quickly respond to change in an uncertain world is arguably very disruptive to the process of learning. That said, addressing the technological and thus economic needs will be far more manageable than the overall human consequence of this volatility (Roger, 1961). Creating specialized manpower (Torpey, 1961) will expand the opportunity of America’s youth who attend two-year colleges (Littlefield, 1961a) and ultimately fuel the economic needs of the nation by training workers (Edinger & Bell, 1963). In doing so, junior colleges democratize higher education and influence national welfare providing Americans with the opportunity to pursue the “good life” (Littlefield, 1961b, pp. 486–490). This response and ultimate goal of individual and group success is fueled by the democratic government’s expectation for citizens to pursue education to their maximum potential, to apply that education in their communities and nation, and to support the technological, knowledge, and market demands in the growing and changing economy (Neilan, 1963). This is exemplified in President Johnson’s Manpower Development and Training Act of 1963, which calls for manpower that is properly educated for advancing technology and the creation of new jobs—a legislative action that has the ability to create specified purpose for higher education at varied levels. The Unsettled University: Student Protest and National Challenges  In the 1950s, universities and colleges maintained their position and prestige as the best representation of democracy in action (McDonald, 1954). However, on university campuses throughout the United States in the 1960s, campus unrest in response to Cold War conflicts and the Civil Rights Movement dominated the public image of the institution and challenged its credibility as a representation of democracy and civility. Student activism and protest allowed for critics to suggest that higher education was not an institution dedicated to the national welfare or the preservation of democracy; it was rather criticized as a breeding ground for alternate,

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potentially radical, ideas that could ultimately hinder the US position among nations. After the successful launch of Sputnik, American education was challenged, not the least the value and purpose of universities. University laboratories were, after all, the incubator of atomic science—how could the same laboratories that created the most impressive and destructive weapon in human history allow the USSR to beat the United States into space? This Russian success was ultimately considered an American defeat that challenged the nation’s position of superiority. Throughout US history, there has been an “assumption that we are somehow, and shall continue to be, ‘better’ than other countries … we have an unusual birthright of liberty, freedom, and pioneering achievement, but it is nonsense to assume that Americans are endowed at birth with attributes of superiority in intelligence, imagination, perseverance, initiative and creativity among the peoples of the world” (Sullivan, 1958, p. 546). As a result, there is a “misconception of democracy. It is the idea that every child – regardless of his ability, interests, and goals – should be given the same educational opportunity, no more and no less” (Sullivan, 1958, p. 549). Instead, Sullivan (1958) argues that education should match ability as that is the only way that the American system, codes, and values can persist in the context of the Cold War. This notion that democracy is or should not be emulated in higher education is completely negated by the mid-1960s. In response to student unrest on campus and their questioning of the value of higher education, there is a call to involve students in the inner-workings of universities. The purpose was to give this generation of young men and women a voice in the trajectory of their future, as it was riddled with uncertainty, and to provide an opportunity to learn how social institutions worked and responded to change. Through involvement, students practice democratic participation and create a sense of community on campus (O’Brien, 1966). The Sputnik crisis impacted not only the urgency to educate for citizenship, but to educate citizens to be responsible and responsive in times of national need (DeBoer, 1960). The challenge is determining what type of demands will be on the horizon. One area that universities can attend to that will create more engaged citizens and benefit society as a whole is to confront the challenges in the nation’s poorest urban areas. Universities are criticized for their lack of community involvement, juxtaposed against their role in solving problems through research and learning. This calls

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into question the public and social purpose of higher education to share knowledge. Thus, this context called universities to engage in their local communities to “be a prime mover in the creation of a better society” (Johnson, 1968, p.  419). This expectation is reinforced by the student activism on college campuses creating a climate that requires higher education to re-evaluate its purpose to prepare for the next decade. Peterson (1969) recommends that this can happen if institutional leaders recognize that American society in general is changing, higher education is a social institution and change creates tension for this type of institution, and forces asking for change will be competing with those that oppose change. This will require universities and colleges to meet their social obligations by reconciling competing demands through varied accommodations (Peterson, 1969). The competing demands for universities that emerge during the heart of the Cold War are the expectation of higher education to educate leaders for a free world and create ways to support the economy with knowledge and educated workers. To reconcile this duality of purpose, educators have to contemplate the meaning of freedom and realize that freedom is costly and ultimately tied to the economy; if this cannot be reconciled, freedom could be lost (Griswold, 1957). President Eisenhower understood that higher education could serve the United States in multiple capacities and formed the Committee on Education Beyond the High School. The committee’s report supported that more of America’s youth had to be educated to the fullest of their ability (Josephs, 1957) but it did not indicate which purpose should be the ultimate focus of university education. This is ambiguous as it pre-dates the Sputnik crisis; after Sputnik it became clear that the United States had to invigorate research to increase technological advances (DeBoer, 1960). This fueled the desire for students to go to college to learn a specific field with the ultimate goal of attaining a better job to reap the benefits of the American way of life (O’Brien, 1966) and at the same time, better society through gaining and implementing knowledge (Millar, 1967).

Combatting Communism In the two decades immediately following the Second World War, higher education adapted to the increased demand by students and worked through the growing pains that targeted institutional purpose and expectations for the outcome of higher learning. At this point, supporting

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democratic ideals was a given; what was not understood is how higher education was to emulate the goals of a democratic society. In addition, the US economy was stable, changing the role of higher education in supporting the nation’s economic stability. The identity of the United States as the superior, unquestioned, ideal democracy identified by Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson was recontextualized in national higher education publications, supporting the claim that the institutions knew their charge and adapted accordingly. The three-part duties of higher education—preservation of democracy, citizenship literacy, and economic stability—were each defined by the respective President and the national institution-specific publications. Preservation of Democracy  In the two decades following the Second World War, democracy flourished as the economy grew and other Western nations looked to the United States as the ideal. However solid the democratic identity of the nation was in the 1950s, the launch of Sputnik challenged the US ability to maintain superiority; the inferior communist Russians beat the United States to space, meaning they had superior technology, and ultimately, arguably, better education. Eisenhower’s response to the launch of Sputnik was the National Defense Education Act of 1958 that increased funding for research in higher education and forced curricular reform to focus on scientific research. This legislative action brought more attention to what higher education produced; the public was more attuned to the technology developed in university laboratories and the workers trained in the community colleges. Each responding differently to the charge and increased funding, the tertiary institutions continued to preserve American democracy through implementation of programs to support national needs (Palmadessa, 2017a). By the 1960s, the United States was reasserting its dominance in technological production, but also had domestic unrest due to the call for equality for all Americans. The Civil Rights Movement in the United States was the foremost demonstration of the dedication to democracy. Leaders and average citizens were involved, or protested, the inclusion of all Americans in the quest for a life that only a democratic state could provide. This influenced Kennedy and Johnson in their agendas to focus on higher education as a means to make the United States a just society; justice in a democratic state can only survive if all members are included in the practices of the state.

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The 1950s responded to the Sputnik crisis by focusing the expansion of knowledge for responsive citizenship and the 1960s expanded the democratization of higher education through the Higher Education Act of 1965. In each instance, higher education, regardless of tertiary position, was expected to support the context-implemented charge to preserve democracy through institutional adaptations. However, this appeared as a positive transition for all of higher education as it facilitated curricular reforms and made it possible for underrepresented populations to attend college, how the two- and four-year institutions were expected to respond was different. The people’s college was to train workers to function in a democratic system; the university was to train leaders to innovate to combat the successes of the USSR. Citizenship Literacy  Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson each supported the quest for an educated citizenry. If citizens were not educated, they could not properly engage in a democracy, would not be self-supporting, and could not contribute to the national economy. As democracy was threatened by social unrest at home and by warfare abroad, Kennedy and Johnson in particular had to reinvigorate the purpose of higher education to prepare citizens for engagement as a means to preserve democracy and freedom in a nation engaged in an effort to save the world from the radical ideological foe. This challenge was met by training leaders to facilitate successful navigation of a politically divided world, innovation that led to technological superiority, and training citizen-workers in fields that support leaders and scientific advancement. The divided connotation by institution type of what it means to be a citizen is starkly contrasted during this period, particularly after 1957. The community college focused on citizenship education as a means for graduates to be self-supporting members of their communities. Responding to local economic needs ultimately supported citizen involvement through work and meeting local needs of communities. In addition, the community college was to support the idealized citizen image contrasted against the unrest on the four-year campus. In the four-year colleges and universities, the goal was to train citizens to lead through education for rapid response to ideological opposition and a focus on technological innovation for national strength. Each of these duties reserved for those deemed valuable enough to lead society as representative of the ideal US

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citizen—poised to lead and challenge the enemy through interaction, economic advancement, and superiority of weaponry. Economic Stability  From 1953 to 1969 the American economy was reaping the benefits of the post-War international dependence on the US capitalist market. New technologies were developed during the war and were adapted to civilian benefit afterward. President Eisenhower understood the transition soldiers were going through after the war to reintegrate into society; they needed support and direction to become contributors to the national economy whether that was through work or education, each supported by the GI Bill of 1944. Additionally, the increased funding for higher education through the National Defense Education Act of 1958 created the means for more scientists, more students, and more workers to attend institutions of higher learning and turn that federal investment into economic contributions through products and human capital. Kennedy and Johnson also understood the importance of higher education’s role in the national economy and worked to include more citizens in higher education to fuel the national economy and secure the nation’s superior status. This was the ultimate goal of the Higher Education Act of 1965—to provide access to higher education for populations previously excluded as a means to support the economy and promote the United States as the most powerful nation-state (Palmadessa, 2017a, 2017b). Higher education was expected to participate in the nation’s good fortune and work to make sure it continued into the 1970s. For the community college, this meant responding to industry and market demands by training workers to fulfill local business needs; for colleges and universities, students were expected to fight communism through innovative knowledge and leadership, whenever and wherever either was needed. This divided expectation is an undeniable example of the starkly contrasted experience of purpose on a national scale for tertiary institutions. Community colleges needed to produce humans to infuse the economy by producing goods; universities and four-year colleges were to produce leaders to navigate the contentious terrain of the 1960s. This resulted in graduates of each institution type experiencing American identity as definable by a person’s station in the socio-economic hierarchy.

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Combatting Communism on College Campuses Institutions of higher education responded to federal requests to continue the effort to combat communism through technological innovation and campus programs, even as they were being challenged from within by students seeking more freedom and ability to enjoy the benefits of democratic life. With renewed attention to science and specified training, twoand four-year colleges adapted their campus communities and their academic programs to meet the desires of the nation. This did not quiet all discontent on campuses as student activism and unrest would continue into the 1970s. Activism on college campuses would only become more frequent and unsettling as the conflict in Vietnam continued into the Nixon presidency. Ultimately, becoming a devastating failure for the United States, the conflict in Vietnam, the resultant student protests, and an economic downturn facilitated an opportunity for leaders and the public to challenge the role of higher education in the nation and its validity as an institution charged with protecting American democracy, training citizens, and supporting the position of the United States in the increasingly globalized marketplace.

References Adamson, D. W. (1955). Educational Apprenticeship for More Engineers. Junior College Journal, 26(2), 78–81. DeBoer, L.  P. (1960). Developing Responsible Citizens Through Instruction. American Association of Colleges Bulletin, 46(3), 353–365. Edinger, O.  H., Jr. (1960). We Will Be Ready. Junior College Journal, 31(3), 121–122. Edinger, O. H., Jr., & Bell, M. D. (1963). Observations on Opportunity. Junior College Journal, 33(5), 4–6. Ewing, J. M. (1955). The People’s College. Junior College Journal, 26(2), 63–64. Griswold, A.  W. (1957). The Cost of Freedom: An Academic View. American Association of Colleges Bulletin, 43(1), 7–13. Higher Education Act. (1965, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1976, 1980, 1986, 1992, 1998, 2003, 2008, 2013). P.L. 89–329; P.L. 113–28. Hoeglund, H.  A. (1961). Let’s Work on Curriculum. Junior College Journal, 31(8), 437–441. Johnson, B.  L. (1961). Is the Junior College Idea Useful for Other Countries? Junior College Journal, 32(1), 3–8.

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Johnson, L. B. (1964, May 22). Remarks at the University of Michigan. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http://www.presidency.ucsb. edu/ws/index.php?pid=26262 Johnson, L. B. (1965, February 15). Special Message to the Congress on the Needs of the Nation’s Capital. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=27427 Johnson, J. B. (1968). The university as a problem solver: Creativity and the ghetto. Liberal Education, 54(3), 418–428. Josephs, D.  C. (1957). The President’s Committee on Education beyond the High School: A Progress Report. American Association of Colleges Bulletin, 43(1), 133–137. Kennedy, J. F. (1961, February 20). Special Message to the Congress on Education. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=8433 Kennedy, J.  F. (1962, June 11). Commencement Address at Yale University. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=29661 Kennedy, J. F. (1963, January 29). Special Message to the Congress on Education. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=9487 Littlefield, H. W. (1961a). Critical Issues Facing America’s Junior Colleges. Junior College Journal, 31(7), 361–364. Littlefield, H. W. (1961b). America’s Stake in the Junior College. Junior College Journal, 31(9), 483–491. McDonald, R. W. (1954). A Half Century of American Higher Education – 1900 to 1950. American Association of Colleges Bulletin, 40(3), 346–358. Meany, G. (1964). Labor and the Community College. Junior College Journal, 34(5), 6–8. Millar, B.  P. (1967). The Great Tradition and the New Order: A Crisis of Adaptation. Liberal Education, 53(4), 506–515. National Defense Education Act. (1958). P.L. 85–864; 72 Stat. 1580. Neilan, E. P. (1963). The Changing Educational Scene. Junior College Journal, 34(2), 4–8. O’Brien, K. B., Jr. (1966). The Undergraduate and American Higher Education: Notes for a Course. Liberal Education, 52(2), 165–171. Palmadessa, A.  L. (2017a). America’s College Promise: Situating President Obama’s Initiative in the History of Federal Higher Education Aid and Access Policy. Community College Review, 45(1), 52–70. Palmadessa, A.  L. (2017b). American National Identity, Policy Paradigms, and Higher Education: A History of the Relationship between Higher Education and the United States, 1862–2015. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Peterson, R. E. (1969). Reform in Higher Education – Demands of the Left and Right. Liberal Education, 55(1), 60–77. Rapp, M.  A. (1961). New Frontiers in Curriculum for Community Colleges. Junior College Journal, 32(2), 65–71. Roger, S. (1961). The Junior College in an Age of Technological Change. Junior College Journal, 31(5), 243–247. Stockwell, R. E. & Feldman, M. J. (1961). Leadership for the average capable learner. Junior College Journal, 32(3), 127–130. Sullivan, R.  H. (1958). The Sputniks and American Education. American Association of Colleges Bulletin, 44(4), 545–555. Torpey, W. G. (1961). Recognition for Engineering Technicians. Junior College Journal, 31(6), 313–317.

CHAPTER 4

Servicing the Public and the Marketplace for National Growth, 1970–1989

Following two decades of contested purpose and relationship between institution types and their role in supporting the US identity and goals related to democracy and social advancement, through the 1970s and 1980s the higher education service model emerged. This was realized in the community college as a call to focus on a vocational curriculum to provide training for workers to meet the needs of local business and industry; for the university, the curriculum and faculty focused on creating knowledge as a commodity, based on the desired programs students wanted. For two- and four-year institutions, this is a result of national pressures supported or influenced by the national economy and federal legislation focused on innovative technologies. The result is institutions responding to market pressures compounded by student pressures and a model judged on output of commodities—defined as either human or knowledge capital. This was exacerbated by the realities of the national economy which suffered after the calamities of the late 1960s and the conflict in Vietnam, challenges with partners in the Middle East, mistrust during and after the Nixon administration, and changing social and political demands. There was an energy crisis, a financial crisis, international conflicts, and shifts in the USSR’s government that altered the trajectory of the Cold War. This perfect storm of change and challenge influenced the course of higher educational institutions’ renegotiation of purpose, resulting in a highly commoditized institution, responsive to economic needs, couched in terms of citizenship and democracy. © The Author(s) 2020 A. L. Palmadessa, Higher Education Divided, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50746-6_4

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After the challenges of the 1970s, in the 1980s the focus was on economic recovery and growth. As the Soviet Union was in a state of decline, the United States was poised to take control after a decade of domestic political embarrassment; political, social, and economic failures; and devastating violent events at home and abroad. Given the potential for the United States to regain solid political and economic foundations, President Reagan took advantage of the somewhat ignored potential of higher education to reinforce the nation through and after crisis. The United States experienced immense change and the direction of the Cold War shifted; this allowed for a renewed focus on how education could support the nation’s success in the 1980s by studying the role, purpose, and challenges to education in the previous decades and making necessary adjustments to get American education into a position not questioned or challenged by the public at large.

President Nixon, 1969–1974 The Nixon presidency proves to be one of the most challenging moments in the political history of the United States. The unfortunate events of the Nixon years, coupled with the conflict in Vietnam, made for a very difficult context for higher education to function within and attempt to serve the American people. Whereas the 1960s saw institutional growth and legislation supporting access to higher education, the institutional challenges of the 1970s were a response to student activism and general social discontent. The late 1960s is a well-known period of youth activism on and off college campuses. That activism continued into the 1970s as war continued in Vietnam. In 1970, the activism culminated in the Kent State Massacre in which four students were killed, and nine were injured, by the National Guard during a protest against President Nixon’s decision to invade Cambodia. This violent event was interpreted various ways—youth out of control protesting, the National Guard misusing their power, and so on—but the one accepted understanding of the events of 4 May 1970 is that college campuses had become a place where students felt they could express their views and unfortunately, sometimes that included violence from either and all sides. This created a fear of what could occur on college campuses across the nation and once again called into question the purpose of a college education. That perspective would have to combatted and redirected toward national support initiatives. Lucky for Nixon, the economy needed help, and educated innovators, workers, and producers

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could fulfill that role and renegotiate higher education’s image in the public realm. President Nixon had the opportunity to take advantage of continued growth of eligible college-aged students who were born toward the end of the post-War baby boom. Additionally, the economy had changed significantly due to involvement in foreign affairs, military expenditures, oil embargos, and domestic upheaval. In his attempt to position higher education to support the nation, he clearly notes the divide between universities and community colleges based on the outcome of the education received; although calling for change in the inequitable distribution of support to the various institutions, he mandates the purpose of community colleges as strictly vocational. President Nixon addressed Congress: Something is wrong with our higher education policy when – on the threshold of a decade in which enrollments will increase almost 50% – not nearly enough attention is focused on the two-year community colleges so important to the careers of so many young people. (1970b, para. 4)

Here, President Nixon wants the community college to meet the demand of the student population growth that is forecasted for the decade of the 1970s. A combination of the generation’s growth and the extension of the GI Bill for veterans of Vietnam indicated that the need would grow, these young people would need jobs, and the community college could serve the dual purpose. To make this possible, in a special message to Congress on 19 March 1970, Nixon argued in support of proposed legislation: Two-year community colleges and technical institutes hold great promise for giving the kind of education which leads to good jobs and also for filling national shortages in critical skill occupations. Costs for these schools are relatively low, especially since there are few residential construction needs. A dollar spent on community colleges is probably spent as effectively as anywhere in the educational world. These colleges, moreover, have helped many communities forge a new identity. They serve as a meeting ground for young and old, black and white, rich and poor, farmer and technician. They avoid the isolation, alienation and lack of reality that many young people find in multiversities or campuses far away from their own community. At the same time, critical manpower shortages exist in the United States in many skilled occupational fields such as police and fire science, environmental technology and medical para-professionals. Community colleges and similar institutions have the potential to provide programs to train persons

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in these manpower-deficient fields. Special training like this typically costs more than general education and requires outside support. Accordingly, I have proposed that Congress establish a Career Education Program, to be funded at $100 million in fiscal 1972. The purpose of this program is to assist States and colleges in meeting the additional costs of starting career education programs in critical skill areas in community and junior colleges and technical institutes. The Department of Health, Education and Welfare would provide formula grants to the States, to help them meet a large part of the costs of equipping and running such programs, in critical skill areas as defined by the Secretary of Labor. (Nixon, 1970b, para. 34–42)

In this speech, President Nixon not only addresses the accessibility of community colleges and their integral role in job training, but also points the important role the institutions play in their local communities—to support economic and social growth that specifically helps the given community. Nixon also points to the very specific fields the two-year colleges can best contribute to and lauds their adaptability to needs in context, juxtaposed the four-year institution that he refers to as a multiversity, indicating the four-year institutions are seeking to meet too many demands from too many constituencies, derailing their focus from the needs of the nation. Although he criticizes the university’s attempt to answer to multiple constituencies, President Nixon does support the concept of the four-year college’s duty of producing an elite class that will lead the nation to a successful future. Countering the focus of workforce development for community college students, Nixon proposes that the university produces leaders in this statement: But let us understand exactly where we are. I would not for one moment call for a dull, passive conformity on the part of our university and college students, or an acceptance of the world as it is. The great strength of this Nation is that our young people, the young people like those in this room, in generation after generation, give the Nation new ideas, new directions, new energy. (Nixon, 1970a, para. 52)

In this address, he is recognizing the importance of expression on college campuses in the wake of the Kent State Massacre. He understood that students’ protests were not only their right but an exhibit of their potential as leaders. Questioning actions and challenging knowledge is recognized as a skillset needed by leaders. President Nixon recognized that

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talent was bred in the university, and it was that talent that would lead the nation forward, not the workforce that met immediate functions or needs of the nation, those educated by the community college.

President Ford, 1974–1977 President Ford had the unfortunate experience of coming into office as a result of scandal in the Oval Office and just in time to see the failure in Vietnam come to fruition with the fall of Saigon. The unrest in American society, the upset and embarrassment from political corruption, and loss of American lives in the conflict in Vietnam paralyzed institutions and forced them to take into account where they fit into this unsettled context. The Ford administration’s expectations of higher education were not clear. What was clear, however, is that the public needed this great institution to establish its purpose in this discontented nation. The Ford administration is an exception in comparison to the administrations discussed to this point. President Ford considers both universities and community colleges as a means to produce workers to benefit the market economy. For example, President Ford argued in a proclamation that “[b]eyond high school, our many fine colleges, universities, and occupational schools give young people the opportunity to prepare for virtually any career and to fulfill almost any desire for self-enrichment …” (Ford, 1976, para. 3). This example is representative of Ford’s addresses that include references to higher education; they are general remarks and include listed, varied institution types grouping all into a broad category of higher education, lacking distinction and conflating purpose. In President Ford’s speeches regarding higher education, higher education’s purpose is to bolster the economy by training future workers and creating more products to be traded. He does not make a distinction in purpose between universities and community colleges in the data analyzed, providing a brief anomaly in the perceived separate purposes of tertiary institutions.

President Carter, 1977–1981 The Carter administration felt the pains and aftermath of the Nixon administration, the conclusion and failure in Vietnam, and the continued tensions in Eastern Europe from the Cold War. Added to this was the energy crisis, fuel shortages, unrest, and a coup in the Middle East, all

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exacerbated by the hostage crisis in Tehran from November 1979 to January 1981 involving the capture of 52 Americans. Going into the 1980s, President Carter presided over a nation that “by all accounts, we have just been through a decade in which our faiths in ourselves, our nation, the world, science, public institutions, and even our private lives, have been severely shaken. It is our very destiny that is at issue” (Bonham, 1980). Carter’s term ended just into the 1980s, but his administration at the end of the 1970s felt the weight of this context and considered how higher education could help adjust to and possibly alleviate some of the pain born out of these crises. Following Ford’s administration, the Carter administration focuses on the economic output of colleges and universities at all levels of higher education, not separating the purpose based on an educational hierarchy. This focus on productivity defined the Carter administration’s goals for higher education throughout his term in office. Exemplified in his signing statement in 1980 regarding the Higher Education Act Amendments, Carter stated: This legislation will, for the first time, bind in an official way the Department of Labor and the Department of Education so that in the future the products of high schools, community colleges, vocational and technical schools, and senior colleges will be more accurately oriented toward career opportunities in the communities where the graduates will live. (Carter, 1980, para. 11)

In this statement, all institutions of higher education are considered equal in purpose—to make sure that educated Americans were prepared for jobs. This continued the lack of distinction between institutional types described by US presidents for the majority of the 1970s. Although there is no clear distinction in overall purpose, the institution types are listed as they have a particular role in the job market and communities, based on institution type. There is indication that the education and the resulting job or career of graduates will influence where they live and the communities they support. For each graduate, the role is quite clear: serve the community your job finds you in. Making a distinction between various two-year institution types and referring to senior institutions does express a marked difference in the President’s understanding of the role of each institution type although how those differences could be operationalized is not clear. Given the crises, focus was on salvaging superior status among

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nations; unfortunately, for the leaders of the free world, they did not take advantage of the potential of higher education, albeit a controversial institution, as it was a site for protest and unrest. However, this positions the 1980s as a time to re-focus the role of higher education in the nation-state.

President Reagan, 1981–1989 President Reagan inherited several crisis situations—energy, the economy, and the hostages in Tehran. He was poised to meet the needs of the United States and its people, and clearly defined the role tertiary higher education would serve in the nation as he envisioned it in the decade of the 1980s. President Reagan was not afraid to call attention to the failings of social institutions under his predecessors’ administrations, and he was clear that part of his job was to rectify the loss of focus on the utility of education in national success. By the close of the Reagan administration, one of the most formidable challenges the United States contended with for four decades would be remedied—the USSR would collapse, and the Iron Curtain would fall. At that point, US successes or failings would no longer be judged in comparison to the USSR, placing the United States in a significantly higher position in world authority, allowing for a turn inward to work on domestic institutions, all while mitigating world affairs and the fall of the Soviet Union. Thus, this two-term presidency altered the future of world history. President Reagan, in contrast to the presidents preceding his term, considered education to be a valuable asset to the United States throughout history. However beneficial education broadly was to the United States, he was well aware of the decline in public opinion regarding higher education over the course of the previous 20 years, and the arguable decreased value of the educational enterprise in the United States in particular after the unsettled decade of the 1970s. Thus, President Reagan ordered a commission to study the educational system and needs of the nation; the result was the famed 1983 report, A Nation at Risk. Although the findings and recommendations of the report are contested in various educational and policy circles, one agreeable point is that it demonstrates Reagan’s dedication to supporting education in the United States and making it a priority in his national agenda. President Reagan, in contrast to the two presidents before him, makes his expectations for tertiary higher education very clear in his public addresses. In Proclamation 5418, Reagan defines the role of community

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colleges in the United States as institutions dedicated to vocational training. He proclaimed: The more than thirteen hundred community, technical, and junior colleges, public and private, in the United States have contributed enormously to the richness and availability of American higher education. Nearly half of all undergraduate college students in the Nation today are enrolled in such institutions. By providing educational opportunities at costs and locations accessible to all who are qualified, community, technical, and junior colleges have greatly enhanced the opportunity for every ambitious student, young or old, to enter a postsecondary school program. As community-based institutions, these schools provide varied programs and offer specialized training for more than one thousand occupations. (Reagan, 1985, paras. 1–2)

The two-year college is expected to respond to local needs, predominantly those that lead to vocational success. As indicated, the students who attend community institutions would likely not attend a four-year school due to financial constraints. Thus, community college students are poor and ambitious, and seek employment in their home communities. Universities, however, are to focus on the development of the whole person, not just preparing them for jobs. In contrast to this defined vocational role for community colleges to serve disadvantaged populations specifically, Reagan (1986) argues that “colleges and universities enhance the mental and moral development of their graduates” (para. 1), clearly defining a different role to the baccalaureate granting institution and its graduates. Instead of focusing on the literal output of graduates as human capital to support local economies, four-year colleges and universities are tasked with providing a foundation of knowledge and ethical processes to prepare graduates to enter an unsettled world. These are not the goals of a vocational institution; vocational training teaches to work, and university education teaches to think at a higher level. Although not a direct focus of the 1983 report, A Nation at Risk, higher education would still be impacted by the findings of the Commission. If k-12 education was failing the nation by not preparing America’s youth for society in the 1980s, how could those same youth be successful in a college or university of any kind? What does this mean for the curriculum and expectations of tertiary institutions of higher education? These questions informed public perceptions and pressured colleges and universities to adapt to measureable outcomes, resulting in a focus on human and

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knowledge capital. This neoliberal mentality was solidly rooted in 1970s economic theory, was asserted in the 1980s criticism of education, but would not be formalized and apparent until the 1990s, the decade that would also reap the benefits of all of the transitions in the 1980s.

Higher Education for the Masses or the Market? In the 1970s and 1980s, the transition of higher education to an institution intended to respond to market demands becomes apparent. The 1970s were wrought with political and economic challenges causing citizens and international critics to question the value of a democratic society if that society is represented by corruption. These same critics challenged the purpose and value of higher education. Higher education responded to the criticism by answering to the demands of the consumer, the students, who determined what they needed out of higher education based on economic-based interests and benefits. The lack of concern on behalf of Presidents Ford and Carter facilitated the context for higher education to work within the confines of the historical position of higher education in the United States, but alter the publicly defined purpose of the institution. The result was the institution listening to what the students of the 1970s demanded—obvious relevance and a responsive relationship to market demands. President Reagan’s focus on the economic recovery of the nation agreed with this new perspective, and it was not challenged by his agenda, but was supported. This forever altered the relationship between higher education and the nation-­ state, situating the institution to become an economic agent in the next decade, paralleling the inculcation of neoliberal ideology (Palmadessa, 2017b). Community Colleges: Economy over Democracy? Community colleges experienced the backlash of unrest on college campuses: social and political unrest, uncertainty, and challenges from the public regarding the value of higher education in this tumultuous context. This was the general context in the early 1970s as: The challenge of the seventies is the development of a new saga, a new definition of society’s needs, the invention of new programs operated through new organizational forms toward new ends. A continuous challenging, reforming, and reaffirmation of the purposes and programs of two-year col-

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leges is essential if these institutions are to remain in the vanguard of American higher education. (Ikenberry, 1971, p. 15)

Community and junior colleges fought to be considered an important part of the American system of higher education; in the context of the 1970s, the value is being challenged. It is suggested that the community and junior colleges do not need to adapt only in this context, but must continually evaluate and mold the purpose of the institution to maintain relevance and support continued institutional growth (Ikenberry, 1971). Ikenberry (1971) reminds Junior College Journal readers of the legacy of the two-year institutions as it was the “two-year college that responded most directly to the individual differences of students and gave special attention to the needs of students from minority groups, from low income families, and students with divergent curricular and vocational interests and abilities” (p.  15), making it the epitome of democratic ideals. Ultimately, “the aim is to provide education for all while helping all students to meet educational objectives and realize their potential as worthwhile and productive members of society” (Crosby, 1980, p. 38). Thus, the institution offers an education to those who desire it, and supports the individual’s ability to contribute to the community and be self-sufficient. Responding to pressures from students wanting more engagement with their campus and communities, community colleges took this opportunity to educate students in problem solving to support community change as a means to “live up to its civic responsibility to produce not only informed, but interested citizens” (Starr, 1973, p.  9). Keeping people engaged in their communities would become a key challenge in the 1980s. It is argued that there was a decline in connections to the community from the colleges, potentially due to a lack of understanding of the purpose of the two-year colleges after the decades of change from the 1950s through the 1970s. This presented not only a challenge in understanding but also an opportunity to meet the demands of the 1980s, positioning the community colleges to have the greatest impact possible. Societal change and demand is occurring at a more rapid pace in the 1980s, and the institution is poised to meet those needs (Zoglin, Messersmith, & Luskin, 1981). After all, “community development is a part of the community college and the community college is a part of its own local community” (Matulich, 1981, p.16); in other words, as the community needs change, the college will adapt, and the citizens will benefit from the college’s recognition of the changing needs of a given locale. This attention to needs and

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adaptability leads to the goal of engaging citizens in the affairs of the community by educating them to understand how decisions are made and how they can influence those decisions, thus shaping their future. It is important that the community college bring these aspects of the community together—development, education, and local citizens—as the needs of the 1980s to recover from the economic crises of the 1970s are at the forefront of concern in the United States (Briggs, 1981). It is in the nation’s interest to have an educated society—individuals become involved citizens who determine the course of the national economy (Woodcock, 1975). With the economic downturn and energy crisis of the 1970s, it is no surprise that the two-year colleges felt the pressure of the marketplace. Education as an investment with an expected return was not a new concept. In this concept, the community college is expected to reach beyond the workforce needs of the immediate area to train manpower for national success (AAJC, 1971). The community college helps people become employable, economically advancing individuals and the nation, as the programs and curricula adapt to the needs of business and industry locally and nationally (Meeth, 1972). The problem with this expectation and delivery is that the open door institution is challenged by economic instability—community colleges lack adequate funding forcing the colleges to raise fees making the transition from an open door to an open access institution, ultimately limiting access (Lombardi, 1972). Limiting access by requiring students to pay increased rates has a negative impact on local economies. Communities benefit from educated citizens as they are more employable, keeping local businesses and industries supplied with trained workers (Selgas, Saussy, & Blocker, 1975). This became a national imperative in the early 1980s, and the American Association of Junior Colleges (AAJC) made it a focus of the organization’s mission—to present a case for national leaders to understand the importance of training unemployed workers for new jobs, to educate those already employed to upgrade technological skills, further skills of military personnel, and to improve “worker productivity to effect an improved competitive posture for American business” (Wilson & Davis, 1982, p. 6). The imperative for the US economy in the 1980s was to recover from the downturn of the 1970s; the only way to do this was to educate people to meet the demands of the economy. People are the nation’s greatest asset and most assured way to improve national welfare (Wilson & Davis, 1982). The institution best suited for this challenge is the two-year community college as it is adaptable and responsive to the “global race to produce more for less and to keep up

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with technology that is changing daily” (Garrison & Korim, 1982). As such, the community college can meet the call from President Reagan to “‘chart a different course’” as the nation has “‘come to a turning point … threatened with an economic calamity of tremendous proportions’” by putting Americans back to work through training and education (Garrison & Korim, 1982, p. 11). Reforming the University  In the 1970s, the university was in crisis as a result of social change, political turmoil, and competing interests. Critics suggested that “university education in the US today is in utter shambles” (Kristol, 1970, p.  236), and that the university is an archaic institution that needs to adapt to the present context, which will likely cause colleges and universities to be completely unhinged, not just change, from past purpose and function (Withers, 1970). Even as this offers an opportunity for change, the purpose of the institution is no longer clear, and “there is no reason to think – there is not the slightest shred of evidence – that the organized, collective intelligence of professors has anything whatsoever to contribute to the solving of our social, economic, political, or moral problems” (Kristol, 1970, p. 232). This criticism is reflective of the paradox facing higher education from the public: “The more responsive the public has been in providing and expanding educational opportunities, the more the universities seem to be threatened by hostile forces and instability” (Lowi, 1970, p. 238). Ultimately, this requires that American higher education respond to this paradox in policy and practice to reform its purpose and salvage its value. Embattled by the unrest of the 1970s, four-year institutions of higher education are called to meet the needs of democratic society by expanding access, requiring universities to change processes and procedures, and alter sources of funding, to meet the needs of society (Withers, 1970). This is an incredibly difficult request as “no other institution in society has a charter for creating the whole man and for interrelating the separate aspects of life. Only through reintegrating knowledge can education once more become relevant to social leadership” (Forrester, 1976, p. 166). Leadership in a free society is vital to its survival. Freedom itself is created by society and the body politic exists to ensure freedom for its members in a democracy. For this to persist, new ideas must be sought—this is true for law, in places for discussion, and for education of citizens (Cadwallader, 1982). It is the duty of higher education to make sure that

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citizens [are] educated in political morality if freedom is to be exercised and extended. A democratic state, to insure its own integrity and remain viable, must guarantee its future by satisfying itself that its youth are correctly taught. The wrong education, giving the wrong twist to young minds, subverts democracy. The right education supports democracy and sustains the free community. (Cadwallader, 1982, p. 253)

Given the time of crisis, it is imperative that colleges and universities take this charge to teach people to live and thrive in a changing context (Joseph, 1982), but be careful not to manipulate education to alternately impede democracy by distorting knowledge (Cadwallader, 1982). “While the world external to academic life has changed dramatically since the Second World War, the fundamental purposes of education have not changed one iota. A fully educated citizenry is not only a Jeffersonian ideal, but it is that which distinguishes America among all of the nations of the world” (Bonham, 1980, p. 130); it is the tradition of universities and academic knowledge that shapes the perception of the United States, and it is precisely this goal of an educated citizenry that facilitates the realization of the American dream. In the new context, universities and colleges must meet the needs of modern society, but do so by careful means to salvage institutional relationships with the public at large. Changing dynamics and demands of American citizens is evident in the precarious relationship between the public and the university in the 1970s and 1980s. To serve the needs of citizens and to create literate citizens prepared to take on the challenges of the tumultuous 1970s, higher education has to prove its relevance in relationship to the outside world, as colleges and universities “has within it many of the attributes of the society around it. But it is not that society and it is not a smaller version of that society” (Muskie, 1970, p. 6); rather it is an institution embedded in tradition, a legacy that does not adequately match the norms of the current context. This also challenges the historical social contract between higher education and society as America’s youth has lost faith in the ability of higher education to deliver its social purpose because the institution symbolizes an outdated, elitist order that does not emulate the goals of a nation seeking civil equality (Bloustein, 1970). Instead, students demand that the university provide opportunity for social mobility (Lowi, 1970) as a means to support equality through an intentional connection between career preparation, values, and general education. It is through this triumvirate that students will be prepared to enter the workforce, educated to

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understand the human condition and the goals of the public good, facilitating social mobility for themselves and their communities (McGrath, 1974). Finding a balance among these goals is of utmost importance because “whether we like it or not our democracy will stand or fall on the quality of leaders as well as on the quality of citizens we produce and nurture here” (Cronin, 1987, p. 35). This expectation for higher education to remedy societal ills is a tall order. It requires that the institutions build upon and alter curricula, create new programs, and continually adapt to the changing needs of society. This challenge cannot be met without appropriate public support. One of the most difficult barriers for higher education to provide the quality of education that is called for is appropriate funding. Without proper financial support, colleges cannot meet the demands to emulate democratic society or prepare citizens to lead in a world of unrest (Bloustein, 1970). This is compounded by the public questioning of institutional value, criticizing the cost of higher education, albeit not claiming it is an unnecessary good or service. A potential solution to this difficulty is offered: change the type of education offered. The social purpose of higher education is being replaced with the demands of the job market; therefore, universities should adjust to meet market demands, which will best serve the public as a means to promote economic stability (Edgerton, 1978). However efficient this may appear, it is argued that it is a misconception that a college degree guarantees a better-paying job. Yet, that is the dominant understanding of the public, which is a result of the context. In the 1980s, there are new occupations with advances in technology and societal needs; this results in the need for new programs specific to the technological innovation and resultant public demands (Hook & Kahn, 1986). This shift in complexity in society means that it will no longer be satisfactory to the public for students to learn for the sake of learning. Instead, everything taught and learned must connect to a vocation or economic needs (Averill, 1980).

Understanding and Responding to Criticism All levels of education were criticized in the 1970s; unfortunately, for higher education, student activism, sometimes violent, painted a particularly negative image of colleges and the youth that attended. This notion of attempting to renegotiate the dynamics between institutions and students, and national expectations and student desires, was

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recontextualized in the publications of the AAJC and the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AACU). In the 1980s, after the publication of A Nation at Risk and the public outcry for reform, higher education was given a directive to clearly define the purpose of higher education in the 1980s to preserve American superiority and help regain a dominant economic position. Preserve Democracy  Democracy as a superior government and social system was challenged in the 1970s by corruption, warfare, and economic decline. In the 1980s, there was an opportunity to renegotiate this perception as the international context shifted with changes in leadership abroad. Although the democratic experiment in the United States was challenged, it was not defeated. Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter negotiated internal and external distress, and reminded the public that the nation would survive any challenge. Fortunately, even after Nixon’s corrupt term, the failure in Vietnam during the Ford administration, and the energy crisis and subsequent economic collapse during the Carter administration, higher education persisted as an institution dedicated to preserving the American dream, with or without attention or support of the presidency. The 1980s were then poised to reinvigorate the democratic purpose of higher education, but President Reagan also realized that the system had faltered in the 1970s, and it was going to take a renewed focus from the office of the presidency and a redefinition of the role of higher education in perpetuating a national identity of superiority. The 1970s was one of the most tumultuous periods in higher education history. Campuses were sites of social and political unrest, reflective of society at large. For the community college, the role of preserving democracy in the 1970s was continuing the efforts to provide education to underrepresented groups; by the 1980s, this morphed into not only access for minority groups but assurance that these groups would become productive members of society. The university’s democratic purpose remained largely the same—educate future leaders who could direct society in a more virtuous direction after the unrest of the 1970s. This was a tall order, given the criticisms of the university as no longer being an institution that reflected the democratic ideal as it is accused of breeding discontent and rebellion. Thus, there was a call for reform in higher education in the 1980s to reinvigorate the civic duties of higher education through appropriate instruction and curricular focus.

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Citizenship Literacy  The social disturbances of the 1960s in support of civil rights and in opposition to the conflict in Vietnam set the standard for the involvement of the youth in the matters of the nation. Civic engagement as a means of change was the norm in the 1960s; this carried over into the 1970s; however, the result was not positive. The student activism of the 1970s bred discontent on campus and damaged the public perception of the institution. President Nixon compiled a committee to study the unrest and offer guidance on solutions; Ford and Carter resided over declining enrollments and lack of involvement from institutions of higher learning in the crises of their presidencies. In the 1980s, President Reagan changed this approach of allowing higher education and its students falter, by calling for a renaissance in higher learning and raised expectations for higher education to engage with society in a positive way, teaching citizens to take responsibility for the survival of the democratic state (Palmadessa, 2017a, 2017b). After the social revolution of the 1970s, it was apparent that citizens needed to be educated not just to engage in their community at all levels, but to also understand how their communities functioned. For the community college, this meant reinstituting a focus on community needs but also focusing on educating citizens to be more involved in the function and affairs of their communities. This was the most effective means to integrate educated citizens into the local community and influence the future of the community the college served. For universities, the goal of citizenship education was to provide a community within the institution that represented the democratic ideal, giving students an active role in the function of the college or university. By practicing engaged citizenship on campus, students would learn how to best integrate into society and the workplace after graduation, situating them for the opportunity for social mobility they demanded. Economic Stability The global marketplace experienced rapid changes from the 1970s to the 1980s as a result of technological innovation and shifting relationships between nation-states. For the presidents of the 1970s, this meant that the economic boom after the Second World War was over, and the nation needed to adapt to the changing dynamic in the market and around the world. The result of the shifts in the 1970s, the expense of war, and the energy crisis was a devastating loss in economic status for the United States. As the decline progressed over the course of

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the decade, by President Carter’s administration it was apparent that changes were not only required for survival of the United States as the leader of the free world, but the nation could not handle another economic crisis (Palmadessa, 2017a, 2017b). After Reagan’s inauguration, he renewed the focus on higher education and its potential to facilitate a path toward economic stability. As noted, the United States experienced a serious economic decline in the 1970s and desperately needed a recovery plan in the 1980s. For the community college, this meant that the workforce needed to be properly trained to support new industries. Universities and four-year colleges were expected to develop programs based on market demands as a college diploma was perceived to be the key to a better job for graduates and a better economy for the nation. In each institution, two- and four-year, the curricula and programs were to respond directly to market demands to meet the needs of students who sought a degree as a means to higher income, making the student the consumer, and to support national goals of recovering a superior position in the global economy.

Creating the Market-Responsive Service Institution The Cold War was still a threat in the 1970s and 1980s. In the 1970s, anxieties were elevated with the failure in the Vietnam War, the Nixon years, the energy crisis, and the economic decline. The 1980s were envisioned as an opportunity to overcome these challenges and embarrassments, but the nation was still facing opposition from ideological and economic rivals. The resulting expectation of higher education was for the institutions to respond to the needs based on that which made the United States dominant—the global economy. It was only through an economic revival that the United States would regain its position as the superior nation-state. To do this, institutions had to be responsive not only to what industries were fueling international markets, but also respond to public perceptions of higher education, historical expectations, and student demands. Responding to technological innovation was not a new phenomenon. This was the norm for higher education after the Second World War. What was new, however, was the rapidity of change in technology and the impact this innovation had on national and global economies and the status of those nations among the competition. Considering the continued

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tensions of the Cold War and the need for the United States to remain ahead of Russian advancement, the disillusionment of the American youth with Vietnam, and the internal social and political unrest that resulted from a trifecta of civil rights demonstrations, war protests, and a failing economy, the value of higher education in a democracy was met with unrelenting criticism. The image of college life presented to the public elicited challenges to what the institutions were teaching the future of the nation. This was in stark contrast to historical interpretations and understandings of the value and purpose of higher education in America. The result was a renegotiation of purpose through institutional response. Instead of focusing on tradition and combatting student demand, higher education was going to have to adapt to the needs of the consumer-student as defined by the student, who was ultimately informed by market demands and trends. This positioned all levels of higher education to become responsive to the global market, the same market that would help individuals experience socio-economic mobility and create a renewed foundation of dominance for the United States. Although the presidents of the 1970s opted not to focus on higher education in their social or economic agendas, the institutions of higher learning took it as their mission to make sense of the challenging context, and renegotiate their purpose based on student needs. This understanding of need for change and the potential contribution of higher education is expressed in the Community College Journal and Liberal Education. This recontextualization of national needs in representative publications indicates that although higher education was not a focus of presidential agendas in the 1970s, the institutions were well aware of their role and took the opportunity to respond to the needs of the direct constituency, and defined institutional purpose to position higher education to respond to the next decade’s needs. President Reagan took advantage of this willingness to serve the nation and asked that education re-evaluate its efficacy, bringing education back to the forefront of presidential agendas. This would be of utmost importance in the 1990s as the nation prepared for the coming twenty-first century.

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Preparing for the Final Decade of the Twentieth Century With the downfall of the Soviet Union between 1989 and 1991, the United States was poised to claim victory over the radical ideological rival and declare the United States the undisputed, uncontestable world leader. To support this position, Presidents Bush and Clinton revisited the important role of higher education in providing commodifiable products for the market economy, reassuring the public the enjoyment of freedom, and making higher education once again an indispensable agent of change and support for the nation’s identity as superior, based on economic status of the nation and the individuals who support and enjoy the benefits of that economy.

References American Association of Junior Colleges. (1971). Toward Universal Opportunity: Goals and Priorities for Federal Programs. Formal Statement of AAJC Commission on Legislation, December 1970. Junior College Journal, 41(6), 15–21. Averill, L. J. (1980). The Effective College: Agenda for the 80s. Liberal Education, 1980(Spring), 1–23. Bloustein, E.  J. (1970). A New Academic Social Contract. Liberal Education, 56(1), 10–16. Bonham, G.  W. (1980). The Missions of Higher Education in Contemporary Society: Keynote Address. American Association of Colleges Annual Meeting 1980, Liberal Education, 121–131. Briggs, J. C. (1981). Mobilizing People to Meet Change. Junior College Journal, 51(6), 24–27. Cadwallader, M. L. (1982). General, Liberal, or Political: The Need for Citizen Education. Liberal Education, 1982(Fall), 249–258. Carter, J. (1980, October 3). Sterling, Virginia Remarks on Signing the Education Amendments of 1980 into Law. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=45205 Cronin, T. E. (1987). Leadership and Democracy. Liberal Education, 73(2), 35–38. Crosby, W.  H., Jr. (1980). A New Responsiveness. Junior College Journal, 51(3), 38–40. Edgerton, R. (1978). Talent for the 1980s: Social Change and the Redefinition of Baccalaureate Education. Liberal Education, 64(4), 416–434.

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Ford, G. (1976, October 25). Proclamation 4471  – American Education Week, 1976. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http://www. presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=871 Forrester, J. W. (1976). Moving into the 21 century: Dilemmas and strategies for American higher education. Liberal Education, 62(2), 158–176. Garrison, D. C., & Korim, A. S. (1982). Toward a National Policy for Human Resource Development and Economic Renewal. Junior College Journal, 52(7), 9–11. Hook, D. D., & Kahn, L. (1986). The Liberal Arts and Career Education. Liberal Education, 1986(Spring), 43–50. Ikenberry, S.  O. (1971). Governance and the Faculty. Junior College Journal, 42(3), 12–15. Joseph, J.  A. (1982). Education for Citizenship: Excellence, Equity, and Employment. Liberal Education, 1982(Winter), 323–328. Kristol, I. (1970). What Business Is a University In? Liberal Education, 56(2), 229–237. Lombardi, J. (1972). Tuition…and the Open Door. Junior College Journal, 42(8), 8–11. Lowi, T.  J. (1970). Higher Education: A Political Analysis. Liberal Education, 56(2), 238–257. Matulich, L. (1981). Community Development: Responding to the 1980s. Junior College Journal, 51(6), 16–23. McGrath, E. J. (1974). Careers, Values, and General Education. Liberal Education, 60(3), 281–303. Meeth, L.  R. (1972). Expanding Faculty Support for Underachievers. Junior College Journal, 42(5), 25–28. Muskie, E. S. (1970). College and society: Repression or reform? Liberal Education, 56(1), 5–9. Nixon, R. (1970a, September 16). Address in the Alfred M. Landon Lecture Series at Kansas State University. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=2663 Nixon, R. (1970b, March 19). Special Message to the Congress on Higher Education. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=2915 Palmadessa, A.  L. (2017a). America’s College Promise: Situating President Obama’s Initiative in the History of Federal Higher Education Aid and Access Policy. Community College Review, 45(1), 52–70. Palmadessa, A.  L. (2017b). American National Identity, Policy Paradigms, and Higher Education: A History of the Relationship between Higher Education and the United States, 1862–2015. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Reagan, R. (1985, December 6). Proclamation 5418  – National Community College Month, 1986. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=38123 Reagan, R. (1986, December 2). Proclamation 5583 – National SEEK and College Discovery Day, 1986. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=36778 Selgas, J. W., Saussy, J. C., & Blocker, C. E. (1975). The Immediate Economic Impact of a Community College. Junior College Journal, 45(5), 32–33. Starr, J. (1973). Student Involvement: Should we Bother. Junior College Journal, 43(5), 8–9. Wilson, R.  E., & Davis, D.  E. (1982). Putting the Nation on Notice. Junior College Journal, 52(7), 6–8. Withers, J.  D. (1970). The Institution and the City. Liberal Education, 56(1), 86–96. Woodcock, L. (1975). Education for a New Age: A Partnership with Labor. Junior College Journal, 45(8), 15–20. Zoglin, M. L., Messersmith, L. E., & Luskin, B. J. (1981). Taking the Message to the People. Junior College Journal, 51(5), 31–34.

CHAPTER 5

Capital Gains and Higher Education: The Entrepreneurial University and the Community College as Facilitator of American Social Mobility in the 1990s The 1990s solidified the economic role of higher education on the national scale as neoliberal ideals took hold of presidential agendas. With the emergence of the entrepreneurial university, academic capitalism, and the community college’s overt intention to serve the economic needs of the local business community and marketplace, the intentional socio-economic purpose of the separate institutions was solidified. This created an environment in which tertiary institutions responded to specific market demands— the university was to create knowledge capital and the community college contributed human capital. This removes the focus away from higher education being a public good to institutions directly responding to and servicing the marketplace, privatizing the mission of higher education. Presidential agendas and policy supported this shift in focus from public to private good and institutions adapted to maintain their position of importance on a national scale, albeit a debated transition in relationship to serving individuals and the community. Considering the expected role as producers for market demand, institutions had to adapt to this new focus through institutional reforms and a renegotiation of the social contract between higher education and the public it is expected to serve through education and, now, commodifiable products. The United States had recovered from the devastation of the 1970s as a result of the Reagan administration; the recovering economy and the renewed superiority with the official downfall of the USSR positioned the nation to reclaim its

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position as the leader, now in a new world order defined by global markets and a renewed focus on capitalism’s role in a democratic, neoliberal society.

President G. H. W. Bush, 1989–1993 President George H. W. Bush followed in his predecessor’s footsteps in his effort to continue the transition out of the Cold War, to bolster the national economy, and to move the American people toward an idealized, prosperous, and model democratic nation-state. As the victor of the Cold War, the nation was poised to assume the position of world leader once again. The problem with this goal was that education in general was not holding up to national expectations and was challenged by the 1983 report, A Nation at Risk. Given markedly low student performance in the 1980s, the presidents of the 1990s needed to alter the expectations of the relationship between higher education and the nation, and to focus policy and agendas on supporting the growth and improvement of education at all levels. President Bush considered the purpose of universities and community colleges as specific and very different in his expectations of the hierarchical institutions. In the following statement, President Bush relegates vocational education and remedial education to the community college: There is more opportunity today than ever before, but only for those who are prepared to take advantage of it. For those workers who lack skills and basic education today, a comfortable middle-class existence will be harder and harder to come by. And when some high school grads can’t find jobs in a market begging for workers, then we’ve got a serious social imbalance; we have an education gap. Let’s bridge that gap. Let’s bridge it as fast as we possibly can. You’re doing it. Community colleges provide such a bridge to higher education, a ready resource for vocational training and adult remedial education. You provide access for precisely the very people who are being summoned to alleviate the coming labor shortage. Some of your programs spell opportunity for the most disadvantaged members of the work force. But they also spell opportunity for business at the same time. The disadvantaged and business are coming together in hundreds of programs  – from Colorado to Kansas to Kentucky  – called employer-college partnerships. And this friendly merger of business and academia is a sweeping force for social improvement. Everyone must work together if America is to remain prosperous and competitive in the years ahead. (G.  H. W.  Bush, 1989a, paras. 17–18)

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Not only does President Bush explain his understanding of the purpose of the community college to support the nation through human capital, he defines those that will most benefit from two-year vocational education. He positions the potential community college attendee as a laborer; these are the students who will fill labor needs that are determined directly from business needs. The institution will do its part by creating programs; the people who are willing to be laborers in a market shortage will attend and, in turn, the nation will be in a better economic position to compete in the global market. Later, in the same address, President Bush makes the argument even stronger that the community college exists to produce human capital when he directly addressed community college leaders: As important as it is to reclaim our civic capital of burnished brass and polished marble, how much more important it is to reclaim our human capital. Think, then, of our educational system in this way: as a vast and beautiful inheritance which must be lovingly restored – not once, but every generation. And in this effort, make no little plans. Think big; aim high in hope and work. Continue to work together as a community, to help your students, to lift their vision and lengthen their horizon. (G. H. W. Bush, 1989a, paras. 20–21)

President Bush addresses community college students not as individual persons; rather, he considers them solely as capital, something that can be claimed and restored. The community college student is therefore dehumanized, equated to a product. This, President Bush argued, was incredibly important to the preservation of institutions, to the success of the nation in the marketplace, and for promoting self-sufficiency through job training. In contrast to the commodifiable perception of community college students, when discussing the role of state-funded land-grant institutions, Bush posited: And it was Abraham Lincoln who, one year earlier, as Chase alluded to, signed the Morrill Act into law, launching the great land-grant colleges and a uniquely American philosophy towards higher education. America’s State universities and land-grant colleges opened the door of opportunity to millions of talented kids whose backgrounds might otherwise have precluded their advancement and education; and it marked the first time in American history, in world history, that people of every background were given a chance to prove their abilities through higher education. Your institutions have continued to successfully evolve because you’ve always been there to

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address the needs of each sector, maturing as universities as America has matured as a nation. Step by step, side by side, the strength of America depends on the strength of our youth, and the strength of our youth depends on the strength of your schools. Like America’s bountiful harvests, America’s system of higher education is the envy of the world. And your institutions are filled with powerful examples of what is right about education in America. And many of those examples were cited by your Governors in Charlottesville earlier this fall as we worked together to address the changing challenges in American education. (G. H. W. Bush, 1989b, paras. 4–6)

In this excerpt, President Bush is lauding the university system as the most envied higher educational institutions in the world. These institutions create leaders out of strong minds—these graduates are not commodities, but they are representations of the wealth, prosperity, and power of the United States. Although both institutions are expected to train people to contribute to the nation’s economic status, the social hierarchy between institutions and its graduates is evidenced in these representative text examples from President Bush’s term. The vocational focus of the community college education juxtaposed against the envious value and reputation of the university; this correlates to an expected socio-economic station for graduates and thus a differentiated experience of American national identity.

President Clinton, 1993–2001 President Clinton was elected as a result of his campaign to return national focus on the people of the United States. After two strong Republican presidencies that fought to build the US economy, Clinton proposed to shift the focus of the economy to a model for the people and by the people instead of adding more government regulation, arguably restoring America to a position of world domination solidified by economic stability. To do this, social institutions would play a vital role in facilitating this recovery of position as the market was recognized as a global entity and technological innovation world-wide was accelerating. The inequitable relationship between community colleges and universities is most obviously noted during the Clinton administration. President Clinton plainly stated that the community college is considered to be a lesser institution and calls for a change in the national perspective of what he considers to be a great institution for economic development. In

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contrast, when addressing universities, Clinton often stated that it was without question that the United States had the greatest system of higher education in the world. Most importantly for this study, Clinton recognized the social divide that resulted from the difference in educational attainment, reflected in the tertiary system of higher education in the United States. In regard to the purpose of community colleges, President Clinton offered in a public address in 1995: Today I want to talk to you about your future. I spend a lot of time in community colleges like this one, because I think in many ways this is the most important institution in American society as we move toward the next century. With all of the challenges we face, we basically know what works. What works is educating all of our people; what works is doing what it takes to generate more jobs; what works is bringing people together across racial and income and other lines; what works is a commitment to give more people a shot at the American dream, to grow the middle class and to shrink the under class, and to prepare for the future. And that’s what community colleges do. (Clinton, 1995c, paras. 5–6)

In this statement, Clinton positioned the community college as an institution directly connected to the economy, preparing workers and generating jobs. Additionally, he notes that it is in the community college that the under-class can rise, and racial and social lines can cross. This presumes that the only people who attend the community college are in some way marginalized and the two-year programs can assist in their socio-economic mobility and help individuals to overcome their marginal position. President Clinton believed so strongly that the community college could promote socio-economic advancement for people through better jobs that he proposed the following to Congress: And we also want to do some other things that I believe we must do to make 14 years of education the standard for every American. First, I have asked Congress to pass a $10,000 tax deduction to help families pay for the cost of all education after high school, $10,000 a year. Today I announce one more element to complete our college strategy and make those 2 years of college as universal as 4 years of high school, a way to do it by giving families a tax credit targeted to achieve that goal and making clear that this opportunity requires responsibility to receive it. We should say to Americans who want to go to college, we will give you a tax credit to pay the cost of tuition

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at the average community college for your first year, or you can apply the same amount to the first year in a 4-year university or college. We will give you the exact same cut for the second year but only if you earn it by getting a B average the first year, a tax deduction for families to help them pay for education after high school, a tax credit for individuals to guarantee their first year of college and the second year if they earn it. This is not just for those individuals, this is for America. Your America will be stronger if all Americans have at least 2 years of higher education. Think of it: We’re not only saying to children from very poor families who think they would never be able to go to college, people who may not have stellar academic records in high school, if you’re willing to work hard and take a chance, you can at least go to your local community college, and we’ll pay for the first year. If you’re in your twenties and you’re already working but you can’t move ahead on a high school diploma, now you can go back to college. If you’re a mother planning to go to work but you’re afraid you don’t have the skills to get a good job, you can go to college. If you’re 40 and you’re worried that you need more education to support your family, now you can go part time, you can go at night. By all means, go to college, and we’ll pay the tuition. (Clinton, 1996, paras. 36–40)

This would be a significant federal investment in higher education. Tax credits to cover tuition for community college students would promote access for those who otherwise could not afford to continue their education after compulsory secondary education. He validated this tax cut as the return on the government’s investment would be realized in the national economy. President Clinton was devoted to the development of community colleges for the nation’s benefit, but also saw great worth in the universities, evident in this statement at the Michigan State University commencement on 5 May 1995b: [B]ecause you have a fine education, with all its power and potential, when you leave this stadium your responsibility to your families, your community, and your country will be greater than ever before. With your lives fully before you, you too must once again redeem the promise of America. (Para. 14)

The graduating class is charged with using their education as a tool of power—to wield knowledge to support national success, a duty of university graduates as they have a superior education and thus are better prepared to lead. At Dartmouth, President Clinton expressed the same point

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to the institution’s graduates when he stated, “[N]ow there are unparalleled opportunities for those of you with a wonderful education in this global economy and this information age” (Clinton, 1995a, para. 7). In this text, Clinton offers that the graduates of the superior four-year institution have an opportunity to benefit from the economy. This is diametrically opposed to the role of community college graduates who are positioned to serve as laborers to keep the economy moving forward. President Clinton’s statements reflect an economic purpose for higher education, but in contrast to the statements regarding community colleges as places to develop workers, students with baccalaureate degrees now have expressed opportunities awaiting them in and outside of the market. However negative this appears on Clinton’s behalf, he is well aware of the difference that level of education makes for the public. Clinton acknowledges this challenge in an address at Princeton University when he stated: America knows that higher education is the key to the growth we need to lift our country. And today that is more true than ever. Just listen to these facts. Over half the new jobs created in the last 3 years have been managerial and professional jobs. The new jobs require higher level skills. Fifteen years ago the typical worker with a college degree made 38 percent more than a worker with a high school diploma. Today that figure is 73 percent more. Two years of college means a 20 percent increase in annual earnings. People who finish 2 years of college earn a quarter of a million dollars more than their high school counterparts over a lifetime. (Clinton, 1996, para. 32)

Adding credibility to the claim that Clinton is aware of the division education creates among American society, he acknowledges this discrepancy when he stated that “[i]n our Nation, for the first time since World War II, we have watched, over the last decade and more, the great American middle class which is the core of our idea of America begin to split apart along the fault line of education …” (Clinton, 1995a, para. 12). In this statement Clinton defines the division among college graduates based upon the institution they attended—two-year students will earn a marginally increased amount, whereas four-year students will nearly double their income; additionally, the social position of graduates of each institution type will be reinforced and unbreakable, even with additional income. When discussing the need to address this issue, Clinton posed these questions to the American public:

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The unmistakable faultline in America over who makes it and who doesn’t today, more than ever before, is education. So as we go back to school and the Congress goes back to work, the question is, will your country continue to help those who want to help themselves? Will your country do what it ought to do now, which is what it did for me when I was your age? Will your country meet the challenges of the 21st century, or will we cut off our nose to spite our face by cutting back on educational aid at the time when we need to invest more in it? (Clinton, 1995d, paras. 16–17)

The President calls for the public to pressure Congress to add support for institutions of education at all levels. He argues that the only way the nation can succeed and individuals who want to improve their socio-­ economic station is through education. It is more pressing than any time before in American history, he argues, because the impending twenty-first century will come with a new set of demands and expectations of the people. Educational institutions would also have to adapt to meet the needs of the individuals seeking education and the market demands of the nation-state. President Clinton expected all institutions of higher education to support the economic goals of the United States as a whole. However, he acknowledged the fact that the community college was relegated to help a specific under-class, the working class, to raise their socio-­ economic position, whereas universities were expected to help a population already in a dominant economic position in society reach their personal economic goals. The separate, divided purposes were clearly defined, and revealed a larger issue of social justice in the United States: the inequality of opportunity and access to attain the promise of the American dream.

Redefining Higher Education as a Commodity The notion that higher education had to respond to the demands of the marketplace was not new in the 1990s. However, this connection was formalized by the presidential agendas and resulting research and development legislative actions, technology transfer regulations, and clearly defined economic outcomes for tertiary higher education. The student became not only a consumer but also a product; the knowledge produced fueled the economy, whether created by the consumer-student or resulted in employment of the graduate, a commoditized worker. In the context of the 1990s, this was incredibly important to the status of the United States among nations. By this time, it was apparent that the United States was

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not the only major economic competitor in the global marketplace. With globalization, it was realized that the economic functions of other nations needed to be understood and the United States had to train workers to enter the global market—this became the duty of higher education (Bikson, 1996), albeit varied by institution type. In 1996, “Atwell asserted that by embracing the research university as the premiere model of excellence, academe has lost touch with the needs of our society. ‘The current pecking order of American higher education is out of touch with the needs of the nation and with the academic marketplace. What we and the nation need are multiple models of excellence reflecting different but equally worthy educational missions’” (Crumpacker, McMillin, & Navakas, 1998, p. 32). Community Colleges: Producing Workers  The neoliberal conception of the global marketplace coupled with the speed of technological change in the 1990s created an enormous demand for workforce training. Employees needed to be trained to stay apace with technological advancement as companies sought to stay on the cutting edge of innovations that would expedite production and lower costs. On a national scale, large corporations were able to do this through resource development created by the companies for specific needs. This was not the case for mid-size or small businesses. The smaller, localized companies needed to find the same training, but at lower cost or available outside of company planning. This is where the community college could fulfill a vital role in the context of the 1990s (Bergman, T., 1994). Community colleges are expected to address the needs of multiple constituencies, including businesses, communities, and students. This requires that the institution adapt and respond to the community as a whole and individual interests. However, what this community is composed of and how the institutions respond to those needs is not something that can be replicated from outside to inside the institution. Rather, “the community is found within each classroom rather than the institutional setting” (Ritschel, 1995, p.  16). In the community college, the student body is very diverse—age, ability, and experience. When they roam the halls of campus, they are individuals who are in the same place. Once they enter the classroom, this diverse group becomes a community as they are at that moment entering a shared experience, creating a “situation identity” (Ritschel, 1995, p. 17). In this community, students learn to engage with

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one another, across differences, improving group interaction skills (Ritschel, 1995). Part of President Clinton’s call for reform in education requires that students be taught to work collaboratively; it is the only way they can engage as members of a community, a democracy, in which all members are held accountable for individual and national success. To make sure that individuals best serve the whole, citizens have to be educated to be critical thinkers and learn to work with diverse groups (Lambright, 1995). Contributing to the changing demands for community colleges to prepare people to live and work in the social context of the 1990s is the pace of distribution and sharing of knowledge. Having access to information is imperative to becoming an educated and competent citizen. The community colleges as institutions tied inextricably to the community in which they exist “are uniquely positioned to make sure all people gain access to the advantages of the information age” (Moriarty, 1995, p. 4). Access to education and knowledge is the historical purpose of the community college; with the advances related to information sharing, it is only natural that the community colleges provide the opportunity for all citizens of the community, in and outside of the college, to educate themselves and engage in the social and political needs of society (Moriarty, 1995). If needs cannot be identified or understood, citizens cannot be expected to participate in their given communities. The community college will play an integral role in reshaping the role of colleges in communities to renew the focus on civil society and encourage involvement in the “civic life of the community” (Rifkin, 1996, p. 22). This is of utmost importance as the information age looms, “we face the very real challenge of redefining work itself…the information age is likely to end mass wage labor, freeing up millions of people for alternative forms of work outside the marketplace”, preparing students for “work in both the marketplace and the civil sector” calling for colleges to prepare students and programs for “the transition into a new century and a new economic epoch in history” (Rifkin, 1996, p. 22). Changing social and economic needs are further reflected in welfare reforms introduced by Congress in 1996. The reforms proposed would limit the time individuals could access support from the federal government. For education, this meant that students attending colleges would have to choose programs they could complete in the given time period, often limiting their options to short-term training. In effect, this relegated poor students to minimal education and training, reinforcing their already

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subordinate socio-economic status (Ganzglass, 1996). Additionally, the revisions at the federal level were intended to decrease funding, making it necessary for states to find alternate means to fund higher education (Shreve, 1996). This is a devastating irony as institutions are “responding to the crisis in American education by scurrying to prepare the next generation for work in the emerging information-age” (Rifkin, 1996, p. 20). This circumstance that calls for better-educated information-age workers with less funding is compounded by the varied expectations from the business and education communities that do not converge on what the future workforce needs: While politicians and many mainstream economists continue to urge an upgrading of the technical skills and proficiency of the American workforce to meet the economic challenges of the information age and warn educators to ‘get the kids ready’ for the new high-tech market, some business leaders privately worry that the jobs won’t be there in numbers sufficient to employ the next generation. The reality is that the global economy is undergoing a fundamental transformation in the nature of work brought on by the new technologies of the information-age revolution. (Rifkin, 1996, p. 20)

These new technologies will require less workers as labor will be mechanized, and there will not be enough knowledge-based jobs to replace opportunities for those who would have otherwise worked in a labor or service area. This will require a renegotiation of the relationship between education and the economic structure of the United States and the global marketplace (Rifkin, 1996). Leaders and Knowledge-Makers: Colleges and Universities American life requires three services from the four-year colleges: perpetuation of culture, education to create informed citizens, and economic support through providing for students’ and market needs (Carnevale, 1996). This three-­ part duty is the social purpose of higher education, and the public depends on these services for the common good. If the institutions fail to fulfill these trifold purpose, the public will no longer see a need to support colleges and universities. In this context, “when education does not serve the common good and the larger societal agenda, it will be abandoned by the very constituency that has looked to it for ethical, moral, and value-added leadership. Our ability to be responsive is directly related to both our and our democracy’s survival” (Knefelkamp, 1993, p.  13). These

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representations of the purpose of four-year institutions clearly indicate that the survival of democracy is dependent upon the economy, and the success of the economy depends upon the workers and knowledge produced. This does not mean that citizenship and values do not matter. In fact, “ours is a society based on work … Good jobs make good neighbors and good citizens” (Carnevale, 1996, p.  4). The university will prepare leaders with good moral character who will engage in the marketplace, assuring the success of the democratic state (Knefelkamp, 1993). Educated citizens are contributors to society at all levels and in varied ways. Students leave the university as part of a “world lived in common with others”, and to thrive in this complex and diverse society, students have to be “self-conscious about the ways in which they can work with others to make knowledge powerful in a changing world” (Schneider & Shoenberg, 1998, p. 32). One area of application of knowledge previously ignored by the university is urban communities. It is argued that there should be a new social contract for research universities to focus on urban-­ specific issues as these are the communities many institutions are a part of, and are the communities that students are from and graduates will enter into. Through research and applicable knowledge, university students and graduates can contribute to the urban communities by focusing on the specific needs, with well-researched data and appropriate planning, to alleviate challenges typically ignored by an institution that maintains a social contract with the public to create and disseminate knowledge for the common good (Reardon, 1999). As members of any community, students are to be prepared for engaged citizenship, but also to be contributors to the local, national, and global economy; this too is defined as part of the duty of the educated citizenry as it is the culmination of the investment in higher education for the public good (Smith & Karelis, 1995). Training students for vocations and therefore economic contribution is not a modern phenomenon. In fact, Thomas Jefferson understood “the concept of the purpose of higher education largely centered around training for the law, the career of medicine, or the training of the clergy. In effect, higher education has always had career education functions. The question now is how did we come to understand the expansions of those original careers from the view point of the marketplace and those who needed to fill them?” (Knefelkamp, 1993, p. 10). In other words, higher education no longer plans for the fields that are best for humanity; rather, the market and the student soon to be employees are making the demands.

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Students are now the consumers, not just the product. Students demand “technical knowledge, useful knowledge, labor related knowledge in convenient, digestible packages” (Knefelkamp, 1993, p. 17). The consumer-­ students expect that these packages of knowledge are readily available if desired, and the knowledge contained will be most pertinent to the demands of the contextual marketplace. The market is changing at the end of the 1990s and universities must serve those markets and readily adapt. Thus, “as we examine our purpose for being, and who we are serving, we must understand that there is no one outside of us who is going to tell our consumers you will go to college and this is what you will get. Yet, we also must understand that we no longer have the ability to define what a well-­ educated person is purely on our own” (Knefelkamp, 1993, p. 17). As a result, higher education must help balance economic and social capital so students can learn to adapt with the complexities of the global marketplace (Carnevale, 1996). If higher education fails to prepare students, labor shortages will occur and the US position in the global economy will falter (Chandler, 1990).

Embracing Challenge and Change: Adapting to the Demands of a Changing Market Higher education adapted to the demands of the neoliberal knowledge-­ driven economy that depended upon a balance of new knowledge and a workforce trained to recreate or implement the new technologies. This divide between those who produce knowledge and those who learn to reproduce it was clearly relegated to tertiary institutions based upon what segment of society attended each institution type. The division in where graduates fit into this new market influenced the conceptions of preservation of democracy, what it meant to be an educated citizen, and how each institution would fulfill its duty to contribute to economic stability. Preservation of Democracy  Presidents Bush and Clinton understood and supported the integral role higher education could fulfill in the quest to not only preserve democracy but reassert its position as the best government system in the modern world. In the 1990s, the United States had regained its position of arbiter of peace with the fall of the USSR, and the economy was on the path to recovery. It was during this decade that after 40 years of Cold War created fear and 20 years of unrest and economic

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challenges, the United States was back at the helm of world leadership, and although the global marketplace was thriving with other leading nations’ participation, it was the United States that would dominate innovation and technology leading into the twenty-first century. Being a member of a democracy requires that individuals consider the needs of the collective. In doing so, democracy is preserved and the community thrives. For the community college, with its diverse student population, the process of learning to consider members’ needs is built into the function of the college. Students learn to work with individuals from various backgrounds and abilities in the classroom and take those skills back to their communities. In a university setting, the student population is less varied and curricular adaptations facilitate the necessary team-building skills and expectations. Democracy requires that people work together to a common end; and what is produced by the university is ultimately to benefit the common good, preserving not only democracy but the social function of the university to create knowledge for the benefit of the public, as the public deems appropriate. Citizenship Literacy  President Bush called for a continued focus on the effort to reinstate America’s educational institutions as the greatest, most envied in the world. In doing so, the expectation to prepare the public for service and involvement in the local, state, and national communities were restored. Next, President Clinton made it very clear that for the United States to thrive in the new economy, an educated citizenry was a must. He argued that without properly educated individuals the nation could not maintain its superior status and the gains of the early 1990s would be lost to history. The expectation of the community college was to continue to focus on access, educating as many people as possible to become contributing members of society through manpower. Workers were trained to adapt to the changing needs of the marketplace, and in doing so, became more engaged citizens who directly contributed to national success. Four-year colleges and universities were expected to train leaders to negotiate the appropriate use of knowledge to solve social problems. Graduates were expected to do this through work and service, working to produce knowledge capital and serving their communities by offering solutions to social, economic, and political problems. This reassured the continuation of

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higher education as a public good, offering a reinvigoration of the social contract between the university and the public. Economic Stability  In the 1990s it was clear that higher education was expected to produce knowledge capital and educate the workforce for a rapidly changing market. The economy was recovering from the 1970s and 1980s and required manpower that could provide knowledge capital and produce the knowledge products in high demand. Presidents Bush and Clinton clearly separated the roles of two- and four-year institutions in their duties to support the neoliberal global market—one would create products, and the other would supply the workforce. The separation of knowledge workers and knowledge producers was clearly defined within tertiary higher education. The community college focused on workforce development creating new programs and adapting to the business and industrial needs of their communities. Colleges and universities focused on research and preparing leaders for a global society and economy. This facilitated a very different experience for graduates of the tertiary system, their understanding of where they fit and were valued in this new market. The divide across class lines was made very clear—the community college was to create manpower and the university was to create marketable knowledge.

Preparing for the Global Market Higher education had a clear purpose in the 1990s: create knowledge and workers for knowledge fields. To do this, new programs, funding allocations, and partnerships outside of higher education had to be negotiated. With technology changing rapidly, new programs and methods of instruction were developed to meet the consumer-students’ demands. Funding had to be devoted to areas that would produce the most valuable commodities—whether that was products or human capital. The demands were defined by global markets, national economic needs, business, and industry. Once defined, higher education recruited students to either train to work or educate to discover, establishing a socio-economic divide in student populations, graduates, and ultimately, society at large. This separation of purposes and resulting distinction among graduates was clearly recontextualized in the publications of the American Association of Community Colleges and the American Association of Colleges

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Universities. Each publication noted the need for knowledge, knowledge products, and knowledge workers; what was different is how the institution types planned to meet the market demands. The four-year institutions understood their role to support innovation and research, while the community colleges focused on responding to industry demands by training manpower to work in the new knowledge market. With this acceptance of purpose and focus on heeding to market pressures, the institutions of higher education knowingly participated in this renegotiation of the social contract, cementing the separate experience of students and graduates as they were forever linked to their socio-economic position, not offered an option or support for economic mobility, reinforced by their level of education. This lack of reinvention of the American dream was noticed and attempted to be rectified after the turn of the twenty-first century.

References Bergman, T. (1994). New Resources for Training. Community College Journal, 65(2), 43–47. Bikson, T. K. (1996). Educating a Globally Prepared Workforce. Liberal Education, 82(2), 12–19. Bush, G.  H. W. (1989a, March 30). Remarks to Members of the American Association of Community and Junior Colleges. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index. php?pid=16863 Bush, G. H. W. (1989b, November 21). Remarks to the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index. php?pid=17848 Carnevale, A.  P. (1996). Liberal Education and the New Economy. Liberal Education, 82(2), 4–11. Chandler, J.  W. (1990). Higher Education in the 1990s. Liberal Education, 76(2), 14–17. Clinton, W. J. (1995a, June 11). Remarks at the Dartmouth College Commencement Ceremony in Hanover, New Hampshire. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=51477 Clinton, W.  J. (1995b, May 5). Remarks at the Michigan State University Commencement Ceremony in East Lansing, Michigan. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/ index.php?pid=51317

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Clinton, W. J. (1995c, March 30). Remarks to Students at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Florida. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=51164 Clinton, W.  J. (1995d, September 11). Roundtable Discussion with Students on Student Loans at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, Illinois. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http://www.presidency.ucsb. edu/ws/index.php?pid=51830 Clinton, W. J. (1996, June 4). Remarks at the Princeton University Commencement Ceremony in Princeton, New Jersey. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=52906 Crumpacker, L., McMillin, L., & Navakas, F. (1998). Transforming the University: Feminist Musings on Pragmatic Liberal Education. Liberal Education, 84(4), 32–39. Ganzglass, E. (1996). Workforce Development and Welfare Block Grants: Implications for Community Colleges. Community College Journal, 66(4), 21–23. Knefelkamp, L. (1993). Higher Education and the Consumer Society. Liberal Education, 79(3), 8–13. Lambright, L. L. (1995). Creating a Dialogue: Socratic Seminars and Educational Reform. Community College Journal, 65(4), 31–34. Moriarty, D.  F. (1995). Challenges of Information Technology. Community College Journal, 66(2), 4–5. Reardon, K.  M. (1999). A Sustainable Community/University Partnership. Liberal Education, 85(3), 20–26. Rifkin, J. (1996). Preparing the Next Generation of Students for the Civil Society. Community College Journal, 66(5), 20–22. Ritschel, R. (1995). The Classroom as a Community. Community College Journal, 65(4), 16–19. Schneider, C.  G., & Shoenberg, R. (1998). Contemporary Understandings of Liberal Education. Liberal Education, 84(2), 1–5. Shreve, D.  L. (1996). A View from the Dome. Community College Journal, 66(4), 25–26. Smith, V., & Karelis, C. (1995). Considering the Public Interest: Part I. Liberal Education, 81(2), 4–11.

CHAPTER 6

Human Capital and Market Commodities: Higher Education’s Role in the Twenty-First Century

At the turn of the twenty-first century, the role of four-year and two-year institutions in supporting market demands differently based on position in the hierarchy is solidified. However, the population attending the separate institution types shifted and the intentional socio-economic pigeonholing of students became more apparent. In the twenty-first century, access and equity are key points of discussion at the national, state, and institutional levels. Legislation evolved and implementation has forced some adaptations. Although there are positive trends in the first decades of the new century, marginalized and underrepresented populations are still not able to access higher education as a means to pursue the American dream. Rather, more potential students face economic barriers to attendance, and those who do attend and complete a degree are still relegated to a status based on what population they represent and the earning potential of their selected degree level and area of knowledge. This is a challenge for each institution type and one they must address in a difficult and evolving context. The turn of the twenty-first century brought the expected changes in information sharing and technology. People communicated in new ways and faster than before. These innovative technologies changed the way people worked and lived, and all social institutions had to adapt. In addition to the innovative and arguably beneficial technological changes, there were challenges that no one could have predicted. The twenty-first century was expected to bring new challenges and expectations; however, © The Author(s) 2020 A. L. Palmadessa, Higher Education Divided, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50746-6_6

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deadly acts of terrorism and two wars were not a part of the imagined potential for the new millennia. Devastating acts of violence and war became another topic that colleges and universities had to address in their programs and classes. The impact of destruction and loss of life impacted the entire nation; it would be up to leaders and educators to make sense of the events, teach students a means to understand, and adapt curricula based on the new needs posed by the events of 9/11 and the resulting wars. As with any incredible challenge for the American people previously discussed in this study, such as two world wars, assassinations, and economic collapse, higher education rose to the challenge of interpreting the events as they occurred and preparing future leaders and workers to adapt to the new reality of the twenty-first century.

President G. W. Bush, 2001–2009 President G. W. Bush’s administration was inaugurated with the tragic events of 11 September 2001. Setting the tone for his foreign and domestic policy, President Bush had to negotiate a new concern for the nation— terrorism. This was the first time since Pearl Harbor that the United States suffered an attack on its own soil. This devastating event instigated warfare, renewed patriotism, and created immediate economic growth. In this new environment, higher education had to respond by making sense of the changes and teaching students accordingly. Not dissimilar to the post-­ Second World War expectations of higher education, colleges had to support the nation as the democratic ideal in opposition to a radical, extremist enemy. One way that the institutions could support the United States was to not only support the democratic ideal and an identity of superiority but invigorate the economy with human and knowledge capital. President G. W. Bush follows President Clinton with a clear distinction between the execution of the economic purposes of community colleges and universities respectively. In January 2002, President Bush acknowledges there is a significant difference in what a two-year and four-year degree can offer its graduates. He stated, First, let me tell you, I am a big believer in making sure our community colleges remain affordable, available, and flexible. And the reason I believe that is that I understand that the best way to make sure people have got the ability to work is for there to be a training—a retraining opportunity. In other words, communities must figure out how to match up a community college

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system with jobs that actually exist. It seems like to me, in order for America to be hopeful for everybody, we need to have flexibility, at some point, in the higher education system. And the best place for that flexibility to occur is at the community college level. Technologies race through the country, our economies, but people get left behind. And therefore, there needs to be a system to retrain people for the jobs that actually exist, and the best place to do that, in my judgment, is the community college. I’m not pandering. I happen to believe that. Now, higher education takes all kinds of—there’s all kinds of different ways to achieve higher education. A community college system is one, a 4-year college; there’s others. One of the things I think we need to do is expand the Pell grant system to help people afford higher education. (G. W. Bush, 2002, paras. 75–80)

In this excerpt, President Bush recognizes the ability of the community college to adapt to needs of the workforce and market. Interestingly, and diverging from his predecessor’s dehumanization of the community college student, Bush recognizes the personal benefit of two-year colleges for individuals—in particular, workers who are displaced by a rapidly changing economy. For these displaced workers, it is not their fault that the job no longer exists—it is actually the fault of progress. President Bush does not want these people to be left behind. Rather, he calls on the community college specifically to make programs available for jobs and industries that need employees at a given time. This is to serve immediate needs, not prepare for a surmised future. In September 2003, President G. W. Bush more clearly stated the distinct purpose of the community college: Our economy demands new and different skills. We are a changing economy. And therefore, we must constantly educate workers to be able to fill the jobs of the 21st century. And so therefore, I went to Congress and asked for increased funding for Pell grants for higher education scholarships. Now, more than 1.9 million community college students receive those grants. Community colleges are great places for people to learn new skills so they can fill the new jobs of the 21st century. And that’s why the Department of Labor has begun a high-tech job training initiative to create partnerships between employers—those people who know what kind of jobs are needed— community colleges, and career centers so that those looking for work can match education and the skills they learn with the jobs that actually exist. (Paras. 35–36)

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President Bush supported an increased connection between the federal government, business, and the community colleges through the initiative discussed above. The intent was to encourage more students to attend with federal aid, and also for employers and educators to communicate and work together to support successful training of potential employees. Bush thus relegated the community college to training a workforce responsive to external demands, an institution dedicated to skillsets that meet immediate market demands of employers in the United States. In contrast, President G.  W. Bush stated that universities offer the nation leadership and answer the global market’s demand for competition, not specifically demands from employers, but expectations set forth by a larger entity that responds to demands from many stakeholders. President Bush stated: America has always been able to compete. As a matter of fact, America should not be afraid of competition; we ought to welcome it and continue to be the leader of the world—the world’s economy. We ought to continue to be the leader in research and development. We need to continue to be the leader in higher education. We shouldn’t lose our nerve. We shouldn’t see the future and fear the future; we ought to welcome the future. (2006a, para. 16)

President Bush recognized that the United States is not the only leader in the global market, and understood that all nations involved influenced the demands for education. In this case, he highlights the value of research and development that comes from four-year institutions and encourages institutions to continue working on innovative technologies as a means to secure the nation as a world leader. This gives universities a very specific, superior and valuable, position in the Bush agenda. Later in September (2006b), President G. W. Bush reinforced the superior status of baccalaureate degree-granting institutions, exemplifying his position that the twoand four-year institutions had clear positions in the American hierarchy, when he stated that America’s colleges and universities have always played an important role in advancing innovation, opportunity, and prosperity throughout our Nation and the world. We must all work to provide our students with the knowledge and skills they need to shape a hopeful future for our country. (Para. 2)

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Here, the President posits that US higher education will not only positively impact the American economy but have a material impact on nation-­ participants in the global economy. This gives the four-year colleges and universities a very powerful position in the United States—higher education can support national success and influence international economic prosperity. Even though the institutions are clearly separated in purpose, President Bush positions the institutions to serve a similar goal—do what they can to facilitate a positive future. What students learn will support a future that is economically sound, for the nation and the individual, and that is necessary for the survival of the democratic nation-state. This is particularly important given the context of President Bush’s two-term administration, challenged by terrorism and warfare.

President Obama, 2009–2017 President Obama inherited the war in the Middle East and a collapsed economy. He had to find a way to mitigate the economic decline and war expenses, and a housing crisis exacerbated by financial institutions’ ineptitudes and abuse of market influence and power. A recovery from economic challenges and social and political upheaval from years of warfare and fear would have to be met with an agenda that supported the success of the nation’s people. President Obama made higher education a priority in his administration as he understood the implications of educating citizens to be engaged, model democratic participants, who would be ready to meet the needs of the new economy. Through the combined efforts of the American Graduation Initiative (AGI) and America’s College Promise (ACP), Obama set forth an expectation that not only focused on institutions meeting the needs of the nations, but also that individual citizens take responsibility for appropriately preparing to be active participants in society. President Obama dedicated his education agenda to focusing on supporting the AGI, proposed in 2009, which aimed to position the United States as the world leader in college degree attainment by 2020. This initiative predominantly focused on the community college as AGI’s goal serves a dual purpose of increased degree attainment and service to the twenty-first-century global economy. On 14 July 2009, President Obama (2009a) revealed the goals of the AGI:

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But we also have to ensure that we’re educating and preparing our people for the new jobs of the 21st century. We’ve got to prepare our people with the skills they need to compete in this global economy. Time and again, when we’ve placed our bet for the future on education, we have prospered as a result, by tapping the incredible innovative and generative potential of a skilled American workforce. That’s what happened when President Lincoln signed into law legislation creating the land-grant colleges, which not only transformed higher education but also our entire economy. That’s what took place when President Roosevelt signed the GI bill, which helped educate a generation and ushered in an era of unprecedented prosperity … By 2020, this Nation will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. We used to have that. We’re going to have it again. And we’ve begun to take historic steps to achieve this goal. Already we’ve increased Pell grants by $500. We’ve created a $2,500 tax credit for 4 years of college tuition. We’ve simplified student aid applications and ensured that aid is not based on the income of a job that you just lost. A new GI bill of rights for the 21st century is beginning to help soldiers coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan to begin a new life in a new economy. And the recovery plan has helped close State budget shortfalls, which put enormous pressure on public universities and community colleges … So we’ve already taken some steps that are building the foundation for a 21st century education system here in America … But today I’m announcing the most significant downpayment yet on reaching the goal of having the highest college graduation rate of any nation in the world. We’re going to achieve this in the next 10 years. And it’s called the American Graduation Initiative. It will reform and strengthen community colleges … so they get the resources that students and schools need and the results workers and businesses demand. Through this plan, we seek to help an additional 5 million Americans earn degrees and certificates in the next decade—5 million. Not since the passage of the original GI bill and the work of President Truman’s Commission on Higher Education, which helped to double the number of community colleges and increase by seven-fold enrollment in those colleges, have we taken such a historic step on behalf of community colleges in America. (Paras. 19–22)

This plan offered to increase federal financial support to students, institutions that lacked adequate state funding, and tax credits for those paying tuition. President Obama compares this initiative to the work of the Truman Commission to build more community colleges and the role of the GI Bill in encouraging student enrollment. The AGI, he argued, could have the same effect on American community colleges. Enrollments could

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soar, graduates would be prepared for work in the second decade of the twenty-first century, and the nation would prosper. Additionally, this plan established a goal to have five million more Americans attend higher education, positioning the United States to have the most college-educated citizens in one nation. This focus on community colleges for this goal would also directly impact the economy as more students who attend community colleges over universities seek programs that lead to jobs. The US economy needed workers to support economic growth. In contrast to the expectation of community colleges to prepare a workforce, in an address to students at Georgetown University, President Obama focused on the leadership position of the graduates in the twenty-first-century America. He stated: Most of all, I want every American to know that each action we take and each policy we pursue is driven by a larger vision of America’s future, a future where sustained economic growth creates good jobs and rising incomes, a future where prosperity is fueled not by excessive debt or reckless speculation or fleeting profits, but is instead built by skilled, productive workers, by sound investments that will spread opportunity at home and allow this Nation to lead the world in the technologies and the innovation and discoveries that will shape the 21st century. That’s the America I see. That’s the America that Georgetown is preparing so many of you for. That is the future that I know that we can have. (Obama, 2009b, para. 8)

The graduates of the elite university were charged to oversee the implementation of technological advancement that facilitates the creation of new jobs. These graduates are also expected to make an investment in the nation’s success by providing opportunities for workers through growth in the knowledge-based economy. Through administrative goals and public speeches, the President clearly made a distinction between institution types. Although he recognizes the difference in tertiary institutions, President Obama does not agree that the university is superior to the community college; rather it has a distinct purpose that is equally important. He argued that [a]ll too often, community colleges are treated like the stepchild of the higher education system; they’re an afterthought, if they’re thought of at all. And that means schools are often years behind in the facilities they provide, which means, in a 21st century economy, they’re years behind in the

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e­ ducation they can offer. That’s a mistake, and it’s one that we’ll help to correct. (Obama, 2009a, para. 32)

Obama recognized that the community college was not adequately supported as it was not at the forefront of leaders’ minds due to its historically defined subordinate position. He understood the important role community colleges could fulfill in the new economy, and recognized that they could not meet the charge of AGI if they were not better supported. Furthermore, when addressing the need for the Community College Summit, Obama said: So I think it’s clear why I asked Jill to travel the country visiting community colleges, because, as she knows personally, these colleges are the unsung heroes of America’s education system. They may not get the credit they deserve, they may not get the same resources as other schools, but they provide a gateway to millions of Americans to good jobs and a better life … And community colleges aren’t just the key to the future of their students. They’re also one of the keys to the future of our country. We are in a global competition to lead in the growth industries of the 21st century. And that leadership depends on a well-educated, highly skilled workforce. (Obama, 2010, paras. 5, 7)

The Community College Summit was charged with assessing the needs of community colleges to support AGI. It was clear that the institutions were long-ignored and needed renewed support and attention from the federal government. President Obama noted that this was an important duty of the government as the community college is a unique institution that serves a specific population—the portion of society that will fill the skilled workforce job market, supporting themselves and the national economy, preserving American superiority. President Obama increased the administration’s efforts to train more skilled workers and produce more college graduates with the America’s College Promise Act of 2015. ACP proposes that academically eligible students should receive the first 2 years of college education free, either at the community college or at the university. The rationale for this legislation is to provide access to education and training as, Obama argued, it is the “ticket to the middle class” (Obama, 2015a, 2015b, 2015c, 2015d, 2015e, para. 13). Essentially, Obama argued that education, predominantly workforce-based education, is the most effective means for social

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mobility (Palmadessa, 2017). Although the promise of free higher education and the President’s recognition of degree attainment as a means to elevate one’s social status, he is careful to point out that education does not guarantee a job. He stated, “Here in America we don’t guarantee equal outcomes … But we do expect that everybody gets an equal shot” (Obama, 2015a, para. 17). In other words, higher education should be available to any individual who desires it, but it is up to each individual to use that education for the betterment of themselves and the nation; it is not a given that if higher education is sought, the American dream will be realized. It is the preference of the President, however, that access to higher education should be a given; otherwise, the American dream is not attainable for anyone other than the elite.

Higher Education in the New Millennium The expectation for more Americans to be educated as a means to maintain the US position as world leader makes higher education more important than any other time in US history. The problem is that institutions are answering to multiple, often competing, external and internal pressures. Furthermore, in the new millennium, the purpose of higher education for the public good is being redefined and ultimately conflated with economic outcomes, binding institution type to socio-economic classes within society, forcing a divided experience and contribution to the nation’s identity for Americans who heed the call to further their education. The Community College and the Working Class  The community college reached its 100th year of service to the nation in 2001. At the turn of the new century, the community college’s traditional mission of access for all who desired higher learning was challenged by domestic and international problems. The US economy was shifting to a strictly knowledge-based economy (Carnevale & Descrochers, 2001) that relied upon rapid production, innovation, adaptive workers, and entrepreneurial speed as success depended upon taking knowledge products to market before another innovator strikes (Templin, 2002). The result is a questioning of purpose, placing the community college in an ambiguous position in the new century (Carnevale & Descrochers, 2001).

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In this new context, community colleges needed to find a way to meet the needs of students who do not have access to four-year colleges and prepare a workforce. This is a difficult balance to strike (Templin, 2002). However, in attempting to renegotiate its place in tertiary education, the community college has to retain the democratic purpose of the institution—to be “the community’s college” (Nunley, 2001, p. 51). For many community college students, they are the first in their family to attend higher education (Giltner, 2012), and thus the first to be positioned to achieve the American dream (Templin, 2002). This is the true, traditional, democratic purpose of the community college: serving those who want to continue learning but encounter significant barriers to accessing higher education. These students are also often the “nation’s neediest students” (Anonymous, 2012a, 2012b, p.  48) who will benefit significantly from two additional years of education. As Boggs notes in 2012, “American community colleges are much like the nation that invented them. They offer an open door to opportunity to all who would come …” (p.37). Fortunately, community college cost to students is low, providing the opportunity for students from the lowest income categories to attain higher education, but also attracts students from all socio-economic backgrounds, demonstrating the true democratic nature of community colleges (Scott, 2017). If community colleges are to fully realize their democratic purpose, citizens have to be prepared for the changing context of the new millennium. This creates a dichotomous challenge for the two-year college; it is to contribute to the eradication of social inequity in America, but at the same time, to attend to the needs of the market via employment (Carnevale & Descrochers, 2001). This challenge also breeds opportunity as Carnevale presented in 2012, “the community college’s mix of general competencies and workforce development allows students to live more fully in their time by becoming more active citizens and successful workers” (p.  26). The connection between work and citizenship is widely recognized by contributors to the Community College Journal throughout the early twenty-­ first century. In 2001, Nunley argued that a “better educated citizenry leads to greater employment opportunities, a stronger tax base, an increase in volunteerism, and less need for an economic and social support net” (p. 52). Carnevale reinforces this perception in 2012 stating that:

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The inescapable reality is that ours is a society based on work. Those who are not equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary to get, and keep, good jobs are denied the genuine social inclusion that is the real test of full citizenship … If community college educators cannot fulfill their economic mission to help youths and adults become successful workers, they also will fail in their cultural and political missions to create good neighbors, good citizens, and self-possessed individuals who can live fully in their time. (p. 26)

This connection between citizenship literacy and the economic status of individuals and the nation makes the dichotomous purpose of the twenty-­ first-­century community college of serving the nation and its people and serving the nation and its economy very clear. Although employment does lead to more economic security for individuals, the jobs they are trained for are specific to their station in life; if the students do not fulfill this potential, they lose all opportunity to enjoy the true American way of life. However, if the community college can train workers who will maintain employment, the institution satisfies the role of citizenship educator as these individuals, because of employment record, are brought into the social fabric that recognizes contributions through work. The knowledge-based economy of the twenty-first century brings new demands for the workforce. Workers need to exhibit applied skills for particular fields but also general skills applicable to any environment. Ultimately, “the new economy has upped the ante on the value of general knowledge just as increased emphasis on lifelong learning and performance standards has placed additional importance on measured skill” (Carnevale & Descrochers, 2001, p. 35). This means that the community college has to respond to the market, changing the focus from academics to workforce development (Gennett, Johnston, & Wilson, 2001). In fact, Forde argues in 2002 that “community colleges are at the center of the economic and workforce development universe. This prominent and pivotal position is, in part, an outgrowth of the community colleges’ role as trainer of the masses for immediate employment and as trainer and technical assistant to the community for revitalizing neighborhoods and for creating wealth-generating activities” (p.  29). These activities support the economic stability of the nation by contributing to the “nation’s competitiveness and the standard of living of its people” (Boggs, 2012, p.  39). The economic strata that these community college initiatives focus on is the middle class, through a focus on the “middle-skills area” (Phelan, 2016, p. 1). The middle class is continually referred to as the “engine of

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American prosperity” (Perez, 2013, p. 10) and is the ultimate focus of the workforce development project of the community college in the new millennium (Boggs, 2012; Perez, 2013; Phelan, 2016; Templin, 2002), clearly reinforcing the socio-economic pigeonholing of community college graduates. University Privilege  The new millennium and the tragedy of 11 September 2001 influenced President Bush’s “call for a more robust form of ‘citizenship’” seeking to “enlist ‘armies of compassion’” that would learn and grow to “solve unsolved problems” and “produce new knowledge” (Burns, 2001, p. 2). This requires that the twenty-first-century university adapt to national and international strife, support American society in the quest for knowledge, and service the economy to establish a sound foundation in an uncertain world (Duderstadt, 2001). The notion of the university as a means to preserve democracy is deeply embedded in American history. It has always been the impetus of citizenship education, with the goal of teaching citizens to lead as a means to preserve democracy (Marcy, 2002). These leaders cannot be “complacent in the face of entrenched societal norms, but will take the initiative in shaping our diverse democracy and its global interconnections” (Cantor, 2004, p. 18). Given the context in which America must function in the new century, altered by swift technological advancement, globalization, and a world-wide shifting in the balance of power, it is as important now as at the founding of the nation that universities prepare leaders to preserve the American dream (Anonymous, 2007; Humphreys, 2009). This notion that universities own this responsibility is a charge from the public and the federal government; President Obama’s higher education initiatives (AGI and ACP) support the extension of higher education to more people, assisting in the quest for equal opportunity. Furthermore, “President Obama, Secretary Duncan, and all of us in the administration believe that offering all students a world-class education is a moral obligation and an economic necessity. We also see this as a civic call to action … winning the future also means preserving this country’s treasured democratic values, and instilling and passing them on to each new generation” (Kanter, 2012, p.  24). The nation cannot be successful and its citizens cannot participate fully if they are not educated to engage in the global community (Kanter, 2012).

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For universities, serving as a public good as the institution charged with preparing citizens to assume their duties in democratic society is not new. What is added to that duty, the charge to train leaders, is to confront and challenge social problems that plague society in the new millennium (Cantor, 2004). This mission cannot be solved by one perspective or through one institution. Instead, “students have to learn both how to locate themselves, to think critically about their own positionalities, and how to engage various other perspectives on the issues they seek to understand and to judge” or higher education cannot claim citizenship education as a core goal (Cornwell & Stoddard, 2006, p. 33). This also allows students and faculty to recognize and employ varied experiences to facilitate the creation of new knowledge (Cornwell & Stoddard, 2006) to resolve the problems in the present context. Even as this goal to address social problems and value varied perspectives is prevalent among institutions of higher learning in the 2000s, institutions cannot truly accomplish this without diversifying its student population. Unfortunately, although advocating for diversity, colleges and universities “have not been as vigorous as advocates for addressing inequality of educational opportunity” (Sacks, 2009, p. 14). If opportunity to attend a four-year institution is still reserved for a select population, then it is not only difficult to address the needs of the citizenry (Kanter, 2012), but impossible to ascertain the depth and breadth of needs beyond economic station. The connection between higher education and the economic stability of the United States is integral to national and individual success in the twenty-first century. The new global knowledge-based economy does, however, pose challenges to the traditions and character of American higher education. Although this outlook causes trepidation, it means that higher education must be more cognizant of market forces. This is imperative to universities fulfilling their missions and promise to individuals as educated people and the knowledge they produce and utilize have become the keys to the economic prosperity and well-being of our society … one’s education, knowledge, and skills become the primary determinants of one’s personal standard of living, the quality of one’s life; … it has become the responsibility of democratic societies to provide their citizens with the education and training they need … (Duderstadt, 2001, p. 27)

This is not only the challenge created by the marketplace, but also the demand of students who are constantly bombarded with the notion of the

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marketplace being the arbiter of what type of education they need to be successful in their careers and contribute to American society (Kahn, 2002). This focus on preparation for the global marketplace is compounded by the ideological position that the national economy is directly linked to national security, which is dependent upon higher education’s ability to educate students to fully contribute to the knowledge-­based economy (Skaggs, 2014). These perspectives essentially determine that four-year colleges and universities are charged with facilitating economic stability for national security, American superiority, betterment of society, and individual prosperity.

Twenty-First-Century Expectations for Higher Education Higher education at all levels is put on notice as an integral component of the preservation of the US superior status among nations. This expectation requires that higher education produces commodifiable knowledge and human capital, leads in technological innovation, prepares leaders for an interconnected world, trains workers to adapt to globalization and constant shifts in technology, educates citizens to exercise their duties and responsibilities in democratic society, and resolves social inequality and inequity of opportunity. How can one social institution meet all of these expectations? Preservation of Democracy  Democracy was threatened at the turn of the twenty-first century by terrorism, a faulty economy, warfare, and a sharply divided society along economic, social, and political lines. Higher education at all levels was expected to address this amalgamation of threats, but the institution could not possibly meet the demand. It was under-funded, its purpose and value contested by the public, and it was pressed from multiple fronts by often divergent powers. If higher education was to meet the call to preserve democracy, the institution would need increased support from all constituencies and would, at the same time, meet the market demands and preserve the traditional purpose of each institution type. For the community college, this meant that more students needed to be properly trained to fulfill manpower needs in the new economy. In doing so, students were given an equal opportunity for economic

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advancement, a chance to achieve the American dream and participate more fully in the democratic state. University students were expected to preserve democracy by leading in this new world, poised to challenge the threats to American democracy; however, those threats were defined in a given time. Presidents Bush and Obama understood the vital role higher education could play in the preservation of democracy. President Bush expected institutions to prepare individuals to participate, preserve, and protect democracy after the tragedy of 9/11; President Obama challenged institutions to demonstrate democratic idealism by educating the masses, regardless of their socio-economic station, to fulfill the proposed goals of the American Graduation Initiative and America’s College Promise. Citizenship Literacy  What it meant to be a literate citizen in the twenty-­ first century was informed by two formidable opponents: religious extremism and economic decline. For the university to prepare graduates for active engagement in society, they would need to be prepared to understand, work within, and confront social challenges. For community colleges, this meant keeping local economies intact and by doing so, alleviate community problems. Universities and four-year colleges accepted this duty to prepare leaders who understood the global context, could confront social issues on a national scale, and ultimately would produce knowledge for the betterment of society by contributing to the knowledge-­ based economy. Presidents Bush and Obama supported these visions of citizenship literacy and encouraged higher education to fulfill the institutionally appropriate civic duty. Economic Stability  The expectation for higher education to contribute to economic stability was at the forefront of concern in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. At the turn, as a result of the devastation of 9/11, the economy suffered from constant volatility after the dot-com collapse and global responses to terrorism and warfare. Less than a decade later, the American economy collapsed after the banking and housing crisis in 2008, causing an added strain on institutions and individuals as the opportunity to pursue education was further out of reach for many Americans. The knowledge-based economy required workers to be trained in varied skillsets and be prepared to change duties or roles unexpectedly and

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rapidly. Community colleges responded by focusing on workforce development, preparing students to enter the workforce with a specific skillset for employability, and providing an education that prepared them to effectively handle the changing work environment. Universities were charged with the exact opposite—the four-year institutions were expected to create knowledge, innovate, make the technological advancements at a rapid pace to secure economic superiority, and facilitate the expectation for the workforce to adapt essentially on command. The specific expectations of two- and four-year institutions and their role in creating a stable economy were directly influenced by presidential agendas. President Bush consistently referenced the global economy, the need to create knowledge, and the immediate needs of the market. Bush charged community colleges with the task of identifying the market needs in communities and creating appropriate programs to train people to fill jobs. Universities were asked to train leaders to work through the threats to American superiority in the global marketplace. President Obama distinguished the purpose of the tertiary institutions, reminding graduates of the four-year colleges and universities that their future was bright and that they were leaders. However, Obama did not position these graduates as superior in their role in the success of the United States. He instead, in positioning the purpose of the community college which undoubtedly focused on the creation of a prepared workforce, recognized that although different, these institutions and their separate purposes were equally important. That is why AGI and ACP were both focused on increasing graduation rates for all students, albeit funding was directed more favorably and purposefully to community colleges as they were deemed under-­ funded in comparison to their four-year counterparts. To date, ACP, after multiple re-introductions, is still under consideration in Congress, and a new President has assumed power.

What Does the Future Hold for Higher Education in America? The current Trump administration’s agenda for higher education does not specifically address the ideas purported in Obama’s America’s College Promise. However, whether ACP passes or not, and depending on what President Trump expects from higher education as a means to fulfill his agenda for economic prosperity, there will likely be a continuation of social disparity reflective in tertiary higher education if the pattern from 1946 to

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2016 continues. How this impacts the purpose of the institutions of higher learning and their ability to preserve democracy, ensure citizenship literacy, and promote economic stability is underway but not yet determined.

References America’s College Promise Act. (2015). H.R. 2962, 114th Cong. Anonymous. (2007). College Learning for the New Global Century. Liberal Education, 93(1), 36–43. Anonymous. (2012a). Preparing America for Middle-Skill Work. Community College Journal, 83(3), 26–27. Anonymous. (2012b). Is This the End of the Open Door? Community College Journal, 83(1), 48. Boggs, G.  R. (2012). Democracy’s Colleges. Community College Journal, 82(4), 36–39. Burns, D. (2001). Students and the Engaged Academy. Liberal Education, 87(1), 2–3. Bush, G.  W. (2002, January 5). Remarks at a Townhall Meeting in Ontario, California. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http:// www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=62589 Bush, G. W. (2003, September 4). Remarks in Kansas City, Missouri. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http://www.presidency.ucsb. edu/ws/index.php?pid=642 Bush, G.  W. (2006a, April 19). Remarks at Tuskegee University in Tuskegee, Alabama. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http:// www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=72427 Bush, G. W. (2006b, September 26). Statement on the Report of the Commission on the Future of Higher Education. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=23785 Cantor, N. (2004). Civic Engagement: The University as a Public Good. Liberal Education, 90(2), 18–25. Carnevale, A.  P., & Descrochers, D.  M. (2001). The Credentialing Crunch. Community College Journal, 71(5), 33–39. Cornwell, G.  H., & Stoddard, E.  W. (2006). Freedom, Diversity, and Global Citizenship. Liberal Education, 92(2), 26–33. Duderstadt, J. J. (2001). Preparing Future Faculty for Future Universities. Liberal Education, 87(2), 24–31. Forde, M.  L. (2002). Community College’s  – The Center of the Workforce Development Universe. Community College Journal, 72(6), 29–35.

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Gennett, N. D., Johnston, C. W., & Wilson, M. A. (2001). The Shift to Workforce Development. Community College Journal, 71(5), 60–63. Giltner, T. (2012). At Your Service. Community College Journal, 82(5), 46–52. Humphreys, D. (2009). College Outcomes for Work, Life, and Citizenship. Liberal Education, 95(1), 14–21. Kahn, B.  L. (2002). Co-opting the Marketplace in Service of Liberal Arts Education. Liberal Education, 88(1), 54–58. Kanter, M. J. (2012). Civic Learning for Democracy’s Future. Liberal Education, 98(3), 22–27. Marcy, M. (2002). Democracy, Leadership & the Role of Liberal Education. Liberal Education, 88(1), 6–11. Nunley, C. R. (2001). The ‘Community’s College’ and the Realities of Change. Community College Journal, 71(5), 50–55. Obama, B. H. (2009a, July 14). Remarks at Macomb Community College in Warren, Michigan. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/286347 Obama, B. H. (2009b, April 14). Remarks on the National Economy. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http://www.presidency.ucsb. edu/ws/index.php?pid=86000 Obama, B. H. (2010, October 5). Remarks at the White House Summit on Community Colleges. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=88561 Obama, B. H. (2015a, January 7). Remarks at the Ford Motor Company Michigan Assembly Plant in Wayne, Michigan. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=109206 Obama, B. H. (2015b, January 9). Remarks at Pellissippi State Community College in Knoxville, Tennessee. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=109217 Obama, B. H. (2015c, January 14). Remarks at Cedar Falls Utilities in Cedar Falls, Iowa. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http:// www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=109242 Obama, B. H. (2015d, January 20). Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the State of the Union. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=108031 Obama, B. H. (2015e, January 21). Remarks at Boise State University in Boise, Idaho. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http://www. presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=109266 Palmadessa, A. L. (2017). America’s College Promise: Situating President Obama’s Initiative in the History of Federal Higher Education Aid and Access Policy. Community College Review, 45(1), 52–70.

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Perez, T. (2013). Building a More Competitive Economy. Community College Journal, 84(3), 10. Phelan, D. J. (2016). Workforce Development and its Centrality to our Mission. Community College Journal, 87(3), 1. Sacks, P. (2009). Tearing Down the Gates: Confronting the Class Divide in American Education. Liberal Education, 95(3), 14–19. Scott, J. (2017). The Community College and the Public Good. Community College Journal, 87(4), 6–7. Skaggs, D. (2014). Higher Education as a Matter of National Security: Can Democracy Plan Ahead? Liberal Education, 100(1), 32–37. Templin, B. (2002). The Calm Before the Surge. Community College Journal, 72(6), 9–12.

CHAPTER 7

Higher Education in the Era of Trump: Considering the Ambiguous Future of Tertiary Higher Education in a “New American Moment”

This final chapter considers President Trump’s stated agenda for higher education. Although technically beyond the scope of this research as he was elected in 2016, it is important to consider where tertiary higher education is heading in the near term: Will there be changes in purpose? Changes to access legislation? A focus on human over knowledge capital, or the reverse? These are questions that are pertinent to higher education but also to the social, economic, and political future of the United States. Additionally, it is important to recognize at this time, the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting the nation, the people, and its institutions. Higher education will have a role to fulfill in this context, albeit that role is not yet determined. As this work is concluding in early 2020, the Trump administration is in its third year and currently navigating one of the worst, rapid economic declines to date, most volatile markets in US history, all compounded by international disaster created by the COVID-19 pandemic. To date, higher education has not been as prominent in his agenda as expected, given the campaign mantra of 2016 and 2020 to “Make America Great Again”, which arguably assumes that education would be at the center of this endeavor. An effort to return America to an undefined period of greatness should include the use of one of the nation’s most prized social institutions. That has not, to date, been the case. Instead, higher education is a minor focus; whether that will positively © The Author(s) 2020 A. L. Palmadessa, Higher Education Divided, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-50746-6_7

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or negatively impact the future of the institution is a matter for discussion after Trump’s presidency ends. Arguably, lack of presidential attention in this case could be of great benefit to purpose, but not necessarily to the financial security of two- or four-year colleges and universities. As was the case in the 1970s when Presidents Ford and Carter did not include higher education as a priority, now, in the third decade of the twenty-first century, higher education could either benefit or suffer from this lack of attention. Higher education could work within the academic community to resolve challenges and potentially adjust to needs as the institutions see fit, or the lack of attention and therefore lack of support from the federal government could impede growth or adaptation of institutions. Instead of focusing on how to support higher education as a means to execute his agenda, President Trump’s administration has considered issues impacting higher education, such as Title IX reform, but it has not considered the ability of higher education to support broader goals of the entire nation.

President Trump: Reducing People to Products President Trump’s agenda for higher education is quite simple: train people to earn money to better support the national economy. In his speeches from the first two years of his presidency, as evidenced below, Trump makes the connections between post-secondary education, the economy, vocational education, human capital, and the American dream repeatedly in his public statements. Through these connections, Trump makes the purpose and expectation of higher education in the United States to train workers to contribute to the economy so that individuals can experience the benefits of the American dream. Not only is higher education absent from President Trump’s national agenda, there appears to be a disconnect between his understanding of the purpose of various higher education institution types and their traditionally accepted missions, as well as a lack of faith in their ability to serve the nation. During a discussion with the Chancellor of Germany and business leaders, President Trump not only revealed his preference for workforce training over traditional higher education, but also argued that businesses should take the lead in preparing the curriculum and research development. He stated in (2017) as follows:

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I want to thank all of the business leaders who have joined us to discuss a subject that’s very important to me: training our workforce for the 21st century, especially with respect to manufacturing jobs. We’re working every day to bring back jobs to our country, and thousands and thousands are already coming back. You’re seeing it, you’re reading about it in the papers, every single day. We want to make sure that we have the workforce development programs we need to ensure these jobs are being filled by American workers … Here in the United States, companies have created revolutionary high-tech and online courses. And of course, for decades, Germany has been a model for highly successful apprenticeship—that’s a name I like, “apprentice”—apprenticeship programs … We must embrace new and effective job training approaches, including online courses, high school curriculums, and private sector investment that prepare people for trade, manufacturing, technology, and other really well-paying jobs and careers. These kinds of options can be a positive alternative to a 4-year degree. So many people go to college, 4 years, they don’t like it, they’re not necessarily good at it, but they’re good at other things, like fixing engines and building things. I see it all the time, and I’ve seen it; when I went to school, I saw it. I sat next to people that weren’t necessarily good students, but they could take an engine apart blindfolded. Companies across the country have a chance to develop vocational training programs that will meet their growing needs and to help us achieve greater prosperity. (p. 1, paras. 1–5)

In this excerpt, President Trump also established a difference in people’s skills and the type of education he deems appropriate to particular abilities or intelligences. He used personal recall to inform the difference in people’s abilities, focusing on a blue- versus white-collar aptitude. In his anecdote, he argues that those who may not be successful in the classroom could work more effectively with their hands, and those are the people businesses should seek and support in the quest for vocational education. This, ultimately, would result in a prosperous nation by filling jobs and drawing American business and industry that relocated overseas for adequate, low-cost labor back to the United States. To formalize his position on the purpose of higher education to produce more human capital for business and industry to select from, President Trump signed several executive orders that outline his agenda and means to support vocational education in or outside of institutions of higher education. One order expands apprenticeships as a means of vocational training, a goal he highlighted in the previous text, and increased government support for companies and institutions outside of education

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to create vocational education programs, further negating the value of higher education. In this signing statement, President Trump not only reinforces the purpose of vocational education and the need for human capital, but highlights the doubt in value of the investment in higher education; he stated, “[S]o we’re empowering these companies, these unions, industry groups, Federal agencies to go out and create new apprenticeships for millions of our citizens. Apprenticeships place students into great jobs without the crippling debt of traditional 4-year college degrees. Instead, apprentices earn while they learn, which is an expression we’re using: Earn while you learn” (2017, p. 3, para. 27). In other words, a college education will only put people at a disadvantage because of the cost. To avoid the accumulation of debt, students should focus on skill-based education, working as an apprentice, and abandon the pursuit of higher education. Although this would avoid accumulation of debt, it also relegates a class of people to industries with lower pay and no potential for social mobility. In this scenario, the apprentice learns a trade, a skill, directed at one form of employment. This type of work does not require higher education and therefore is expected to sustain an individual and produce goods for market, but it will not offer an opportunity for social or economic mobility, continuing the cycle of socio-economic inequality of opportunity. Further negating the value of institutions of higher learning, both twoand four-year, President Trump argued that the community college is not properly named. He stated that it is hard to define, and as an institution, it should be better situated for its purpose by altering the name or replacing missions that address or claim to support other curricular programs, certifications, or degrees. Trump argued: A word that you don’t hear much, but when I was growing up, we had what was called vocational schools. They weren’t called community colleges, because I don’t know what that means, “a community college.” To me, it means a 2-year college. I don’t know what it means. But I know what vocational—and I tell people, call it “vocational” from now on. It’s a great word. It’s a great word. Call it vocational, and technical, perhaps. But use vocational, because that’s what it’s all about. People know what that means. We don’t know what a community college means. We want every American to know the dignity of work, the pride of a paycheck, and the satisfaction of a job well done. (2018, p. 8, paras. 73–74)

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In this statement, President Trump not only reveals his ignorance of American tertiary higher education but de-values an institution that was created to offer opportunity and increase access to a variety of programs, including but not limited to, vocational education. This is in direct opposition to President Obama’s attempt to increase federal support for community colleges as a means to grow the American economy through education. Instead, President Trump does not understand the multiple missions of the community college, ignores the potential to educate more individuals for varied goals, and negates its value in the ranks of higher education. Trump not only blatantly reveals his ignorance of the purpose of higher education in general but also proposes that the over 100-year-­ old institution, whether called junior or community, abandon its mission to serve communities as needed, based on specific needs of citizens in a given locale. Rather, President Trump would prefer that community colleges train workers for the latest trend in the market, without preparing students for changes in the market or further opportunities. Ultimately, and perhaps not surprisingly, President Trump declares that he supports an inequity of opportunity for the nation’s people as it best suits the success of the market, reinforcing a class-based society in which only the elite deserve the opportunity to enjoy the American dream.

Higher Education’s Understanding of the Trump Agenda Even though President Trump does not clearly indicate an understanding of the purpose of higher education, tertiary or not, and there is an obvious lack of focus on higher education as a means to reach his goals for the nation, higher education is just as important and imperative to national success as the previous chapters argue. Although the Higher Education Act is due for reauthorization and there are implications for students’ financial well-being, institutions have not been at the forefront of Trump’s agenda or the focus of potential financial support from the federal level. However, due to the present COVID-19 pandemic, President Trump approved the CARES Act as a means to financially assist college students that were negatively impacted by the rapid evacuation of campuses and the transfer to online education, marking one indication that American college students are of value to the nation’s success. What is not yet understood is if there will be additional support to institutions as there are

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already indications of a significant decline in enrollment due to the economic and public health crises resulting from the pandemic. The Community College  After President Trump’s inauguration, community colleges maintained their focus on meeting marketplace demands. In doing so, the institution considers its role as vital to democracy, a benefit to citizens, and a means to stabilize the economy. Thus, “community colleges are at the forefront of access, and we need to make sure that we’re providing as much access for everybody to participate in this changing economy” (Flory, 2018, p. 12). In doing so, more Americans will be prepared to face economic difficulties and changing workforce requirements and dynamics. To make sure that the community college is staying abreast of the most urgent needs, collaborations with business and industry are an integral means to be successful institutions in the third decade of the twenty-first century (Graham, 2018). This need was recognized by President Trump as he appointed a taskforce, including the President of the American Association of Community Colleges Walter Bumphus, to contend with the role higher education could assume in the expansion of apprenticeship programs. The community college is an ideal institution to further facilitate an apprenticeship program, given the community, business, and industry partnerships synonymous with its mission (Guth, 2019). Perhaps, this partnership can reinforce the importance and varied roles of the community college in the national agenda as it is the only institution that can mitigate national and local needs. The Four-Year Colleges and Universities One of the conundrums confronting American society in general is what exactly constitutes the American dream in this historical moment. In 2017, Pasquerella pointedly stated: While the American dream has taken a decidedly more materialistic turn in recent years, higher education has consistently been ideologically linked to its fulfillment, whether in its capacity to serve as a catalyst for economic success and social mobility, in its ability to convey the values upon which our society rests, or in its preservation of democratic vitality through an educated citizenry. (p. 2)

Ultimately, as defined above, the democratic purpose of higher education encompasses serving many aspects of American life but it is important to

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note that this multi-faceted purpose “extends beyond [the] market value” (Pasquerella, 2017, p. 3). The irony of this defined purpose and attachment to market value is that there is a profound “disinvestment in public higher education in the United States, despite the fact that education remains the most powerful catalyst for social mobility” (Pasquerella, 2018, p. 2). Students who attend public four-year institutions represent the top social classes, particularly the most elite institutions, reaffirming the “transition away from the notion of higher education as a public good toward its being considered a private commodity” separating higher education from a means to achieving the American dream (Pasquerella, 2018, p. 2). This is problematic; Pasquerella wrote in 2019 as follows: Since our nation’s inception, institutions of higher education have been established with the goal of educating for democracy and preparing knowledgeable citizens and leaders. If colleges and universities are to develop the independent and critical thinkers necessary to ensure that democracy flourishes, we must reaffirm a commitment to the civic mission of higher education. (p. 3)

The position of the American Association of Colleges and Universities President Dr. Lynne Pasquerella became the strategic mission of the organization—to support higher education in reclaiming its purpose to preserve democracy, to prepare citizens to engage in their communities and nation, and in doing so, to support economic stability.

Looking to the Future The future of tertiary higher education in the United States is arguably uncertain. Economic insecurity, international conflict, and domestic social and political divisions all threaten the American way of life. Adding to the ambiguity of the future of higher education is the COVID-19 pandemic. To date, higher educational institutions are attempting to address how to function in the new reality. How higher education responds to this context in part determines the future of this beacon of American idealism, but it is also dependent upon the transition into the next presidential term and the economic impact of the transition. Given the context of the global pandemic, higher education has great potential to reassert its role as preserver of democracy, educator of

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citizens, and economic stabilizer. The United States is currently at a standstill in the Spring of 2020; the outcome and ultimate result of the pandemic is still uncertain. Educational institutions will be charged with addressing this tragedy as all others in American history—scientific research for vaccines and medications, technological innovation for protective measures, curricular reforms to tackle the social, political, and public health ramifications of COVID-19, and attending to student needs in this new context will all confront institutions of higher learning in the near term. Not only does higher education have an obligation to serve the public good through knowledge creation and educating the youth of America, but it is an institution that will have to adapt to the new context of safety for its students. This will undoubtedly alter the function of colleges and universities, but also offers an opportunity for the resurgence of recognized importance of higher education. However positive the potential for increased attention and need, a formidable challenge for tertiary higher education will be two-­fold: the economic decline due to literally closing the majority of the national economy to prevent the spread of the virus, and the public health challenges of having groups of people in enclosed locations (residence halls, cafeterias, classrooms, and labs), and a means to keep people healthy in enclosed group environments is a new concern. The combination of unemployment from the economic closures, the general decline in individual income, and the increased expenses related to public health will ultimately lead to financial constraints for students and institutions, resulting in lower attendance rates. Decline in enrollment will not only create a challenge for institutions, but it will have a material impact on the economy as less students graduating leaves a void in leadership and research, informed citizens, and trained workers. Thus, there is potential for a renegotiation of purpose for higher education in the United States.

Significance and Conclusion Access to higher learning and equality of opportunity regardless of socio-­ economic status are continued challenges for higher education, exacerbated by the present situation with COVID-19, the social and political challenges compounded by the pandemic, and the economic decline. Theoretical progress has been made in the previous decades in that institutions, administrators, policy-makers, faculty, and staff advocate for the

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inclusion of more of America’s youth in the opportunity to achieve the American dream. However adamant supporters are for more equality in higher education and ultimately economic and social mobility, it is not enough. Policy and funding systems will need to change; admissions processes will have to be revised. The unmatched superiority of American higher education has made and continues to make great progress in providing opportunity for successful living, regardless of how success is defined. This does not mean that it is without fault as the tertiary system is still representative of social divisions in the United States. Analysis of the data suggests that presidents overtly expect community colleges to produce workers by teaching skills and responding to the needs of employers. Conversely, universities are expected to do research, create new products, and train people to lead in business, industry, politics, and ultimately, society. Both institution types are expected to meet economic demands, but one is to provide human capital whereas the other is to provide goods and knowledge to be traded. If the hierarchical institutions have a decided role in the economic status of the nation, they are relegated to serve that purpose, a purpose that is clearly divided between the working class and upper class, dividing the universities and community colleges along social class lines. Thus, the institutions and its students experience a different interpretation of their role in the United States based upon their socio-economic status. Findings suggest that all levels of higher education are expected to meet the economic needs of the market, the nation, and the individual, on some level, somewhat varied based upon the status of the institution in the hierarchical system reflective of American social divisions. The separation of roles of tertiary institutions reflects the class inequities that are prevalent in US society more broadly. Although the university and the community college are expected to support the nation-state, they do so very differently based on their tertiary position as those at the top of the hierarchy will produce knowledge, create goods, and directly benefit from market involvement; those at the bottom of the hierarchy will bear the burden of labor that keeps the market infused with products to be sold. This perpetuates the issues of class division based on socio-economic status, relegating students who cannot afford a university education to be pigeonholed into a working-class education with working-class wages, contributing to the perpetuation of the cycle of inequity in the United States.

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References Flory, E. S. (2018). Preparing for the Future of the Workforce. Community College Journal, 87(3), 12–13. Graham, M. S. (2018). Collaborating for the Common Good. Community College Journal, 88(4), 1. Guth, D. J. (2019). Training the Next Generation of Workers. Community College Journal, 89(3), 10–11. Pasquerella, L. (2017). The American Dream and Higher Education’s Broader Purpose. Liberal Education, 103(1), 2–3. Pasquerella, L. (2018). Bridging the Divides at the Heart of Democracy. Liberal Education, 104(1), 2–3. Pasquerella, L. (2019). Game of Thrones and Educating for Democracy. Liberal Education, 105(1), 2–3. Trump, D.  J. (2017, June 15). Remarks on Signing an Executive Order on Expanding Apprenticeships in America. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=126332 Trump, D.  J. (2018, March 16). Proclamation 9707—Vocational-Technical Education Week, 2018. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=129521

References

Apple, M. W. (2009). Some Ideas on Interrupting the Right: On Doing Critical Educational Work in Conservative Times. Education, Citizenship, and Social Justice, 4(2), 87–101. Cornwell, G. H., & Stoddard, E. W. (2001). The Future of Liberal Education & the Hegemony of Market Values: Privilege, Practicality, and Citizenship. Liberal Education, 87(3), 6–15. Eisenhower, D. D. (1953). Remarks at the Cornerstone-Laying Ceremony for the Anthony Wayne Library of American Study, Defiance College, Defiance, Ohio. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/232170 Eisenhower, D. D. (1960, June 5). Address “Beyond the Campus” Delivered at the Commencement Exercises of the University of Notre Dame. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/ index.php?pid=11811 Jessop, B. (2008). Introduction. In B. Jessop, N. Fairclough, & R. Wodak (Eds.), Education and the Knowledge-Based Economy in Europe (pp. 1–9). Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense Publishers. Stockwell, R. E., & Feldman, M. J. (1961). Leadership for the Average Capable Learner. Junior College Journal, 32(3), 127–130. Trump, D.  J. (2017a, May 7). Statement on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http:// www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=124227 Trump, D. J. (2017b, February 28). Remarks on Signing the Promoting Women in Entrepreneurship Act and INSPIRE Women Act. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=123449

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Trump, D. J. (2017c, May 13). Commencement Address at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=124750 Trump, D.  J. (2017d, October 25). Remarks in an Exchange with Reporters. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=128706 Trump, D.  J. (2017f, June 15). Remarks on Signing an Executive Order on Expanding Apprenticeships in America. Retrieved from The American Presidency Project website at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=126332

Index

A America’s College Promise (ACP), 117, 120, 124, 127, 128 American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), 23, 26, 139 American Association of Junior Colleges (AAJC), 83, 87 American Graduation Initiative (AGI), 117, 118, 120, 124, 127, 128 B The Bulletin, 16, 25, 45, 49 Bush, George H. W., 91, 96–98, 107–109, 124 Bush, George W., 114–117, 124, 127, 128 C CARES Act, 137 Carter, James, 77–79, 81, 87–89, 134 Clinton, William J., 91, 98–102, 104, 107–109, 114

Cold War, viii, 3, 32, 38, 50, 53–69, 73, 74, 77, 89, 90, 96 Community College Journal (CCJ), 16, 19, 23–24, 26, 30, 31, 90, 122 COVID-19, viii, 133, 137, 139, 140 Critical discourse analysis (CDA), 2, 13, 14, 31 D Discourse historical approach (DHA), 13, 14, 31 E Eisenhower, Dwight D., 50, 54–56, 65–68 F Ford, Gerald, 77, 78, 81, 87, 88, 134 G Globalization, 9, 103, 124, 126

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INDEX

H Higher Education Act (HEA), 3, 53, 59, 61, 67, 68, 78, 137 J Johnson, Lyndon B., 50, 53, 54, 59–60, 62, 63, 65–68 K Kennedy, John F., 50, 53, 54, 56–59, 66–68 Kent State Massacre, 74, 76 Knowledge-based Economy, 1, 9–11, 119, 121, 123, 125–127 Korean War, 54 L Liberal Education (LE), 16, 19, 23–26, 30, 31, 90 N National Defense Education Act, 3, 53, 55, 62, 66, 68 National identity, vii, 1–33, 53, 87, 98 A Nation at Risk, 79, 80, 87, 96 Neoliberalism, 9–10 9/11, 114, 124, 127 Nixon, Richard M., 69, 73–77, 87–89 O Obama, Barack, 1, 15, 117–121, 124, 127, 128, 137

R Reagan, Ronald, 74, 79–81, 84, 87–90, 95 Recontextualization, 14–18, 30, 31, 90 S Serviceman’s Readjustment Act, 2, 37, 39, 41 GI Bill, 2, 37–39, 41, 48, 49, 68, 75, 118 Sputnik, 3, 53, 54, 56, 61, 62, 64–67 T Tertiary higher education, 2, 32, 63, 79, 102, 109, 128, 133–141 Truman Commission Report, 38, 40, 41, 43, 44, 47 Higher Education for American Democracy, 1, 15, 38, 40, 47 Truman, Harry S., 37, 39–41, 43, 45, 47–50, 54, 55, 61, 118 Trump, Donald J., 32, 128 V Vietnam, 50, 54, 56, 69, 73–75, 77, 87, 88, 90 W World War II (Second World War), 2, 31, 32, 38, 39, 46–50, 54, 65, 66, 85, 88, 89, 101