Guides: History of Higher Education: History of Higher Education Post WWII

History of Higher Education Post WWII

Over the last century, higher education underwent an enormous metamorphosis. Few industries expanded as quickly and had as much effect on the American population as the increased access to post-secondary education. In addition, the introduction of the GI bill in 1944, although meant to be simply an anti-Depression bill, had a much more significant impact on veterans and higher education institutions than initially assumed. This led to an overall expansion of higher education institutions in the 1970s–1980s. The recommended resources will address some of this history, including issues that arose from its development.

Book Resources for the Post-WWII History of Higher Education

For the Common Good by Charles Dorn
Call Number: E-book
ISBN: 9780801452345
Publication Date: 2017-06-06
Are colleges and universities in a period of unprecedented disruption? Is a bachelor's degree still worth the investment? Are the humanities coming to an end? What, exactly, is higher education good for? In For the Common Good, Charles Dorn challenges the rhetoric of America's so-called crisis in higher education by investigating two centuries of college and university history. From the community college to the elite research university--in states from California to Maine--Dorn engages a fundamental question confronted by higher education institutions ever since the nation's founding: Do colleges and universities contribute to the common good? Tracking changes in the prevailing social ethos between the late eighteenth and early twenty-first centuries, Dorn illustrates the ways in which civic-mindedness, practicality, commercialism, and affluence influenced higher education's dedication to the public good. Each ethos, long a part of American history and tradition, came to predominate over the others during one of the four chronological periods examined in the book, informing the character of institutional debates and telling the definitive story of its time. For the Common Good demonstrates how two hundred years of political, economic, and social change prompted transformation among colleges and universities--including the establishment of entirely new kinds of institutions--and refashioned higher education in the United States over time in essential and often vibrant ways.
Higher Education for Women in Postwar America, 1945-1965 by Linda Eisenmann
Call Number: University Library Stacks (Floor 2) LC1756 .E57 2006
ISBN: 0801882613
Publication Date: 2006-01-19
Outstanding Academic Title for 2007, Choice Magazine This history explores the nature of postwar advocacy for women's higher education, acknowledging its unique relationship to the expectations of the era and recognizing its particular type of adaptive activism. Linda Eisenmann illuminates the impact of this advocacy in the postwar era, identifying a link between women's activism during World War II and the women's movement of the late 1960s. Though the postwar period has been portrayed as an era of domestic retreat for women, Eisenmann finds otherwise as she explores areas of institution building and gender awareness. In an era uncomfortable with feminism, this generation advocated individual decision making rather than collective action by professional women, generally conceding their complicated responsibilities as wives and mothers. By redefining our understanding of activism and assessing women's efforts within the context of their milieu, this innovative work reclaims an era often denigrated for its lack of attention to women.
Higher Education in Transition by Willis Rudy
Call Number: University Library Stacks (Floor 2) LA226 .B75 1997
ISBN: 1560009179
Publication Date: 1997-01-30
At a time when our colleges and universities face momentous questions of new growth and direction, the republication of Higher Education in Transition is more timely than ever. Beginning with colonial times, the authors trace the development of our college and university system chronologically, in terms of men and institutions. They bring into focus such major areas of concern as curriculum, administration, academic freedom, and student life. They tell their story with a sharp eye for the human values at stake and the issues that will be with us in the future. One gets a sense not only of temporal sequence by centuries and decades but also of unity and continuity by a review of major themes and topics. Rudy's new chapters update developments in higher education during the last twenty years. Higher Education in Transition continues to have significance not only for those who work in higher education, but for everyone interested in American ideas, traditions, and social and intellectual history.
The Rise of American Research Universities by Hugh Davis Graham; Nancy Diamond
Call Number: University Library Stacks (Floor 2) LA227.4 .G73 1997
ISBN: 0801854253
Publication Date: 1997-01-08
This study provides an historical interpretation of the ascendency of American research universities and an estimate of their scholarly achievement. The authors question traditional methods of rating the reputation and performance of universities; offering instead an empirical analysis of faculty productivity based on research grants received, published research, and peer approval of that work.

Journal Article Resources for History of Higher Education Post-WWII

From the Beginning: Development of For-Profit Higher Education in the United States. (2006). ASHE Higher Education Report, 31(5), 13–24.

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Lazerson, M. (1998). The disappointments of success: Higher education after World War II. The American Academy of Political and Social Science Annals, 559, 64-76. Retrieved September 23, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/1049607

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Leslie, W. B. (2017). From tumult to benign neglect: The strange career of the history of American higher education in the 1970s. The Review of Higher Education, 3(3), 3–7. https://doi-org.ezproxy.lib.usf.edu/10.1353/rhe.1980.0007

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Roger L. Kemp. (2017). From the military service to the public service: Thanks to the G.I. Bill. National Civic Review, 106(4), 59–61. https://doi-org.ezproxy.lib.usf.edu/10.1002/naticivirevi.106.4.0059

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Scott David W. (2008). The transformation of higher education in the 1960s: Master plans, community colleges, and merging universities. Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society (1998-), 101(2), 177–192.

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Taylor, B. P. (2020). American higher education since World War II: A history. American Educational History Journal, 47 (1). pp 107-111.