The Development of Higher Education for Women in the United States: The 1958 National Defense Education Act (NDEA)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53469/jtpce.2023.03(08).06Keywords:
National Defense Education Act (NDEA), Federal student aid, Higher education, Gender equality, Legislative struggleAbstract
In 1958, the United States, under various pressures, promulgated the renowned National Defense Education Act (NDEA). This multifaceted legislation encompassed all levels of education, from elementary to higher education, and had far-reaching implications. However, few have recognized the significant contribution of this act in advancing gender equality for American women. Data reveals that following the enactment of the NDEA, more women gained access to higher education, entered the workforce, and pursued various professions, thus directly or indirectly propelling the cause of gender equality for American women.
References
National Center for Education Statistics, “Table 318.30: Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctor’s Degrees Conferred by Postsecondary Institutions, by Sex of Student and Discipline Division: 2012 –13,” https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d14/tables/dt14_ 318.30.asp.
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Ibid. See also, Claudia Goldin, Lawrence F. Katz, and Ilyana Kuziemko, “The Homecoming of American College Women: The Reversal of the College Gender Gap,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 20 (2006): 133–56, 153.
Theda Skocpol, “Targeting within Universalism: Politically Viable Policies to Combat Poverty in the United States,” in The Urban Underclass, eds. Christopher Jenks and Paul E. Peterson (Washington, DC: Brookings), 412– 14.
Ira Katznelson, Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time (New York: W.W. Norton, 2013), 15.
Excerpt from Cynthia E. Harrison’s oral history interview with former Congresswoman Edith S. Green, Dec. 18, 1978.
Mabel Newcomer, A Century of Higher Education for American Women (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1959), 152.
Thomas D. Snyder, ed., “120 Years of American Education: A Statistical Portrait,” National Center for Education Statistics (Washington, DC: Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education, 1993).
The National Defense Education Act of 1958, Pub. L. No. 85-864; Snyder, “120 Years of American Education.”
The National Defense Education Act, Pub. L. No. 85-864; Ray Cromley, “Loan Program Aid to College Students,” The Southeast Missourian 63, no. 211, June 8, 1968.
John L. Kirkpatrick, “A Study of Federal Student Loan Programs” (report, College Entrance Examination Board, 1968), 34; Sylvia Porter, “Rundown of Student Loan-Grant Programs,” The Lewiston Daily Sun 75, June 23, 1967.
John W. Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies, 2nd ed. (New York: Longman, 2003); Frank R. Baumgartner and Bryan D. Jones, Agendas and Instability in American Politics (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1993).
Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies, 166.
Baumgartner and Jones, Agendas and Instability in American Politics, 54.
John D. Skrentny, The Minority Rights Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2002), 67.
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