President Nixon and higher education policy-making: Influences and achievements, 1969-1974

Almost immediately upon entering the White House in 1969, Richard Milhous Nixon announced his determination to reorganize and consolidate the Federal bureaucracy. A great many recipients of Federal assistance, especially in the higher education community, feared that Nixon would halt the massive infusion of federal dollars obtained over the Johnson years. This study relies on a number of interviews with important White House advisors supplemented with published works to explore higher educational policy making and legislation over the Nixon years. Overall, this study found that the years from 1968 to 1973 represent one of the most intense periods of activity in higher education policy making and legislation in American history. Despite his public image as a destroyer of domestic social programs, and the enduring hostility of the educational establishment and the media over his alleged role in diluting higher educational programs, this study reveals that President Richard Milhous Nixon made a significant and lasting contribution to higher education policy making and legislation, capped by the landmark Higher Education Amendments of 1972. Nixon succeeded in redirecting the process of higher education funding to reflect his commitment to equal access to funding for all who needed it: he distributed the funds directly to the needy with as few bureaucrats intervening as possible. By late 1973, however, the Nixon educational offensive had ended as White House energy was absorbed by the effort to deal with the expanding Watergate scandal. In attempting to assess the motivation for these achievements it is possible to view Nixon as inspired by an egalitarian impulse to bring higher education within reach of all Americans or as a master politician who merely gave the American people what he believed they wanted when he had to replace the expiring higher education legislation of the Great Society. The evidence presented in this study suggests that Nixon did indeed have an egalitarian impulse, but it is impossible to be conclusive in its importance in shaping his higher education policy. Overall, Nixon's contribution represents a major and lasting legacy for America's hopes for higher education.