We had moved from a mentality that new aid programs would address our fears to a concept that aid enabled education, and education was now the avenue to success and growth for our country. But as the Cold War began to recede from the national consciousness and the threat of nuclear annihilation subsided, and as we began to discover that we really were the only healthy and secure superpower, there was a dampening of the inspirational fire that previously energized our nation's aid programs. The commitment to grants for students subsided and shrinkage in funding began to occur. Now there is a new focus on educational loans as the favored method for students to finance their education, and there are more ways than ever to borrow to meet college expenses. The prevailing conventional wisdom is that education primarily benefits the individual and not the nation, and therefore it is the individual that should bear most of the cost burden.
Loans seem to be the best way to do that.
It is an interesting journey that we have taken over the past fifty years, swinging this way and that in our use of higher education to nurture our GI's, to help us beat the Russians, and to give us new hope for a brighter tomorrow. In the 18th century Alexander Pope recognized the value of education for the individual in the formation of the adult person. Perhaps we are right to refocus on the benefit of learning for more fulfilled personal growth. Surely it is in keeping with our Creator's intention for us that we each develop as fully as possible in the full blossom of our potential. And just as surely there will be a benefit to mankind if we do so.