{"id":1936,"date":"2018-03-19T08:00:31","date_gmt":"2018-03-19T12:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nacacadmitted.wpengine.com\/wordpress\/?p=1936"},"modified":"2018-03-16T13:23:05","modified_gmt":"2018-03-16T17:23:05","slug":"college-access-how-the-space-race-opened-doors-for-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/2018\/03\/19\/college-access-how-the-space-race-opened-doors-for-women\/","title":{"rendered":"College Access: How the Space Race Opened Doors for Women"},"content":{"rendered":"
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iStock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We all know the space race gave America access to the moon, but did you know it also helped pave the way for more women to go to college?<\/p>\n

Women now make up more than 56 percent of students on campuses nationwide,\u00a0according to the US Department of Education<\/a>. But back in the 1960s, colleges often used \u201cgender quotas\u201d or simply excluded women entirely.<\/p>\n

2018 marks 60 years since the passage of the National Defense Education Act (NDEA). In a recent episode<\/a> of the Ways & Means<\/em> podcast, host Emily Hanford explored how the National Defense Education Act inadvertently gave millions of American women access to college.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Hanford interviewed Duke professor Deondra Rose on the topic. Rose credits the state of panic after the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik with creating the environment necessary to pass the NDEA.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople were really like freaking out. And so, they were asking, \u2018What on earth do we do? Is it possible that the Soviet Union is launching satellites and they can see us \u2014 they’re spying on us and they can see our military capabilities \u2014 you know, from on high?\u2019\u201d Rose said. \u201c\u2026this event really dashed Americans’ perceptions of our relative strength when it came to academics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before Sputnik, Carl Elliott, an Alabama lawmaker, had been trying to get legislation passed that would provide federal support and scholarships for college students. After Sputnik, he repackaged it for the \u201cpolitics of crisis,\u201d Rose said, framing it \u201cas a temporary measure that would address the US’s poor showing in science and technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NDEA called for $1.6 billion in merit-based scholarships and student loans. But most importantly, it said that anyone could apply for these scholarships and loans.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the 1940s and \u201850s, congressional liberals from the north would often include specific language in legislation that prohibited discrimination\u2026Southern Democrats would object to the anti-discrimination language, and the bill would die,\u201d Hanford explained. \u201cIn order to pass the National Defense Education Act, the bill\u2019s sponsors, Southerners Carl Elliot and Lister Hill, knew to leave that language out. The bill just said in vague language that anyone could apply \u2014 no specifics about race, no anti-discrimination clause to fire up the opposition. And it worked. The bill passed. And that vague language that said anyone could apply \u2014 that\u2019s how women got their foot in the door.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a result, tens of thousands of women received financial aid under the NDEA and attended college. Millions more have benefitted from later federal aid programs that followed its model, such as Perkins Loans, Stafford Loans, and Pell Grants.<\/p>\n

Listen to the full podcast here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ashley Dobson is NACAC\u2019s communications manager for content and social media. You can reach her at\u00a0<\/em>adobson@nacacnet.org<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We all know the space race gave America access to the moon, but did you know it also helped pave the way for more women to go to college? Women now make up more than 56 percent of students on campuses nationwide,\u00a0according to the US Department of Education. But back in the 1960s, colleges often … Continue reading College Access: How the Space Race Opened Doors for Women<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-access"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Ashley Dobson","author_link":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/author\/ashley-dobson\/"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peWmJq-ve","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1936\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/admitted.nacacnet.org\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}