Higher Education for American Democracy

Abstract

After the Second World War, the role of higher education was to preserve American democracy through technological innovation and instill democratic idealism in the public. The Truman administration capitalized on the opportunity created by and policy paradigm shift resulting from the GI Bill (1944) and reinforced the role higher education has in re-creating and affirming national identity. The Truman Commission Report, Higher Education for American Democracy, set the course for higher education throughout the Cold War. This report and its subsequent impact on the social role of higher education in re-creating national identity is yet to be matched; the directives set forth in the report directly address the nation’s identity of superiority, embedded in economic status, that is supported and perpetuated by an educated citizenry.