| The study examined and analyzed the links, responses, and development of higher education in relation to national priorities of defense, economic growth, and social equality in the United States between 1945 and 1990.;The national defense priority influenced many colleges and universities in the United States to establish close links with the federal government through agencies such as the Departments of Defense, Air Force, Army, Navy, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services Agriculture, and Justice. Colleges and universities also established close links with the White House, Congress, National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Atomic Energy Commission, Environmental Protection Agency, many private agencies, and hundreds of defense-related industries. Colleges and universities responded actively to diverse needs and demands of federal authorities and defense industries.;The economic growth priority was closely intertwined with national defense. Hundreds of industrial and financial corporations established links with the federal government and higher education institutions. The government-industry-university tripartite partnership was formed during World War II (1939-1945) for assuring an efficient defense mobilization process. In the partnership, colleges and universities trained scientists and engineers required by corporations, and performed research projects important for technological advancement and industrial productivity. The partnership produced economic prosperity which, in return, facilitated development of higher education, the complexity and diversity of which were further enhanced by hundreds of Public Laws passed by Congress in the period 1945-1990.;Social equality was and is a basic tenet of democracy, a political value system which upheld that "all men are created equal" and that the people governed themselves for themselves. Democracy was an inherent part of the United States' internal defense structure, and it was propagated in other regions of the world for confronting communism and for building strategic defense zones. Before 1945, social equality was a national priority, but it was not pursued rigorously by American society. In the 1950s and 1960s, colleges and universities were nudged by the Supreme Court and Department of Justice to eliminate segregation and discrimination, and to respond to the social equality priority. From 1975 onwards, American society and higher education institutions responded to affirmative action policy and equal opportunity programs for achieving social equality. |
