Foundations and Associations as Participants in Postwar Higher Education Policy Formation

• In Event: Excellence in Education Research: Early Career Scholars and Their Work

Abstract

Foundations and Associations as Participants in Postwar Higher Education Policy Formation

This poster presents preliminary findings from the author’s larger study, titled “When College Was the Solution: The Golden Age of American Higher Education.” While the main project examines the organizational field that fostered the purported “golden age” of 1944-1972, this presentation focuses on the first eight years of the period. It seeks to de-center the role of federal officials (elected and non-elected) in higher education policy formation by examining the role of inter-institutional associations (especially the American Council on Education) and private foundations (especially the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations) in shaping the major veterans benefits bills of 1944 and 1952, the 1946 educational missions to Germany and Japan, and the work of the President’s Commission on Higher Education between 1946 and 1948.

Author

• Ethan W Ris, University of Nevada - Reno