Merit (1920-1945)
Who Was Educated
The 1920s and 1930s saw a continued growth in higher education. Higher education institutions had the upper hand on the student market because more people wanted to go to college than there were spaces available.
Partly as a consequence of the prosperity of the 1920s, enrollment in institutions of higher education continued to rise.
- Enrollment grew by 84% during the 1920s.
- By the end of the decade, nearly 7% of young people aged 18 to 24 attended college.
The Great Depression did not bring an end to the growth in college enrollments and actually created a boom in community colleges.
- By the end of the 1930s, roughly 9% of the college-age population, or 1.5 million youths, were attending colleges.
- Between 1933 and 1939, 65 public junior colleges were established.
- In 1930, 5% of students in higher education attended a junior college.
- By 1940, the percentage of junior college attendees had grown to 10%.
This growth occurred for several reasons. Compulsory schooling laws forced more students to complete high school than ever before, thereby placing more students in the educational pipeline to higher education. During the depression, students opted to stay in school longer, as the prospects for post-high school employment were bleak. Americans generally came to see the value of a college education.
As more people began to attend institutions of higher education after 1920, the collegiate culture changed. College attracted those who placed more value on the social aspect of higher education than academics. Activities, athletics, and social organizations took up a large part of a collegian's time.
Women and Higher Education
For those collegians serious about academics, universities offered more graduate level programs as entry into the professions. While women were earning more graduate degrees than in previous decades, many professional programs were segregated by gender. Women remained relegated to women's fields such as education, library science, social work, nursing, and home economics. Men dominated the sciences, law, and business programs.
| % of Doctorates Awarded to Women: | |
|---|---|
| 890 | 1% |
| 1900 | 6% |
| 1910 | 11% |
| 1920 | 15% |
| 1930 | 18% |
| 1940 | 13% |
| Women in Selected Professional Occupations, as % of all workers in field: | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Occupation | 1920 | 1930 | 1940 | 1950 |
| Lawyers | 1.4% | 2.1% | 2.4% | 3.5% |
| Physicians | 5% | 4% | 4.6% | 6.1% |
| Nurses | 96% | 98% | 98% | 98% |
| Social Workers | 62% | 68% | 67% | 66% |
| Librarians | 88% | 91% | 89% | 89% |
Both tables are from Barbara Miller Solomon, In the Company of Educated Women: A History of Women and Higher Education in America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985), pp. 127, 133.]
Minorities and Institutional Differences
Institutions of higher education became even further stratified during this period as the urbanization of the American population affected colleges in the 1920s.
In the 1920s and 1930s, the elite liberal arts colleges became even more exclusive. These were selective institutions rooted in class and ethnic prejudice, not talent. Class and racial bias dominated the admissions process. Few African Americans and women applied to such schools. Anti-Semitism, in particular, became critical to a college's ability to call itself an elite institution, and there was a special prejudice against Russian Jews. The discriminatory nature of the admissions process took the form of a "Jewish problem."
The urban universities became the schools of the ethnic minorities in the 1920s. These urban institutions grew by the enrollment of students, primarily Jews and Catholics, who were unwelcome at the elite institutions. Catholic colleges reached out to serve students' general educational rather than religious needs.
Universities were solidifying their status and function as an institution devoted to research. Fewer women were admitted to graduate and professional programs in which research was conducted.
Organizations promoted the distinction made among institutions. In 1932, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching released its report "State Higher Education in California" that offered what came to be known as the "California Model" for higher education. The Foundation recommended that state universities be given a monopoly on research and training for the higher level professions. State colleges were to prepare students for the semi-professions such as teaching and social work, and junior colleges were to concentrate on general and vocational education.
Given that institutions were segregated by race, ethnicity, and class, such distinctions among institutional types helped to perpetuate a stratified employment market.
