The legacy of the Gi Bill equal opportunity in U.S. higher education after WWII

Abstract

There are great expectations for higher education as an instrument of social mobility and economic development. Institutions of higher education are widely thought to equalize opportunity for social mobility, to be catalysts for economic development, and to promote the knowledge and values of society from one generation to the next. While the linkages between higher education and economic development are now well established within the international policy discourse on global universities and economic development, the role of the state in ensuring fairness in access to higher education-and the realization of the promise of social mobility-is seldom considered. Before World War II, access to U.S. higher education was limited and was characterized as for the elite, especially opportunities to enroll in four-year colleges (Trow, 1974).