The federal role recast: Politics, policy, and American higher education in the 1990s

The history of federal interest and involvement in higher education can be traced back to the late 18th century with government programs that promoted land development for western expansion and the establishment of military academies.;Now, at the dawn of the 20st century, that federal role has expanded in ways and into areas that match the nation's subsequent growth and changing demographics, the public's aspirations for postsecondary education, and a post-cold-war political and policy environment that represents a sharp departure from even the recent past. The intervening years from the late 1780s to the 1980s witnessed a pattern of government interaction with higher education that was typically sparked by a set of concerns or goals that found partial solution in a commitment of government resources. Examples include the GI Bill, the National Defense Education Act, the establishment of student aid programs, and the creation of federal funding streams to support research and development on the nation's campuses.;This is an analysis of national policy making for higher education during one decade---the 1990s---that in significant ways represented a break with these traditional patterns and resulted in a recasting of the federal role. While neither fully appreciated by policy makers nor fully recognized by participants in the wider higher education community, the dimensions of that recast role can be seen in the following: (1) A sizeable commitment of resources to student assistance but with a pronounced focusing of those resources on middle-income families; (2) A continued alignment of the flow of research dollars to articulated national priorities but a growing severance of student aid from that list of national priorities; (3) The emergence of a consumer model of higher education with the resultant political impulse to "protect" the consumer through the imposition of an array of regulatory and accountability measures on colleges and universities.;This study examines the origins and implications of this shift in federal role and what it means for future policy directions as well as for institutions of higher learning and the students who attend them.