Government Relations: Does the Public Still Care?
By Mark Smith
The public commitment to higher education in the United States goes back to the origins of the nation. Thomas Jefferson valued education highly and requested that his role as founder of the University of Virginia be listed on his headstone, not his service as president of the United States. In 1787, he wrote to James Madison, “The most certain and the most legitimate engine of government [is to] educate and inform the whole mass of the people.” Jefferson never lost his belief that education was the key to a fully democratic citizenry.
Although Congress defeated John Quincy Adams’s attempt to establish a national university in the 1820s, a later generation of political leaders passed the Morrill Act establishing the land-grant system, which directed that large grants of public lands be endowed to the states to support institutions of higher education. The 1862 bill specifically provided that the endowment from the land grants to the states go to the “support and maintenance of at least one college [in each state] where the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies . . ., to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts . . . in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life.”
After World War II, Congress passed the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, more popularly known as the GI Bill of Rights, providing $14 billion in education and job training benefits for 7.8 million veterans. Half of that expenditure went to provide college or graduate school education for 2.2 million veterans, proving to be one of the most effective public policy investments in American history.
In 1988, a congressional report concluded that the rate of return on the GI Bill “exceeded the government investment in the program by a factor of between 5 and 12 to 1.” Representative James Scheuer of New York pointed out that this finding did not even count any return to the government based on the “increased taxes” paid by the veterans.
After the Soviet Union launched the satellite Sputnik in October 1957, the need to provide better science and engineering education entered the political debate. As a result, the federal government began investing more directly in higher education, initiating the beginnings of federal student-aid programs. In the 1960s, the “baby boom” generation began entering college, and in 1965 the Congress passed the original Higher Education Act (HEA), which now governs all federal higher education programs. The AAUP has supported the HEA since its inception and has strongly pushed Congress to reauthorize the bill over the last two sessions. At this writing, it appears that Congress may well do so early in 2006.
Unfortunately, the nature of the political debate over higher education in recent years does not lend itself to the sort of far-sighted legislation represented by the Morrill Act, the GI Bill, or the HEA. As we all know, both Congress and state legislatures have been deficient in providing the kind of funding necessary to keep up with the cost of higher education. On top of that, efforts to impose political restrictions on academic freedom have proliferated in recent years. The AAUP has been in the forefront of the fight against the misnamed Academic Bill of Rights at both the state and federal levels. We have resisted the attempt to establish a politically appointed advisory board for international programs under Title VI of the HEA, and we joined with hundreds of institutions and associations in protesting restrictive rules on college and university research by various government departments.
It is truly unfortunate that the debate—in terms of both providing adequate funding for higher education and resisting political interference with the quality of academic instruction—has been portrayed by some congressional leaders as self-serving on the part of faculty and institutions. Earlier generations of political leaders in this country recognized the common good inherent in education—not only figures as exalted as Thomas Jefferson, but also lesser-known people, such as William Manning, who recognized the essential nature of education in his 1798 pamphlet The Key to Liberty. Manning wrote that “Learning & Knowledg is essential to the preservation of Libberty & unless we have more of it amongue us we Cannot Seporte our Libertyes Long.” His spelling might leave a little to be desired, but we could do with more of his sentiment in today’s times.
Mark Smith is AAUP director of government relations.
|