Book Reviews: Citizens by Degree: Higher Education Policy and the Changing Gender Dynamics of American Citizenship

Historians also know that the latter half of the twentieth century constituted a boom in federal funding for college students, building from the 1944 GI Bill and the 1958 National Defense Education Act (NDEA) to the 1965 Higher Education Act (HEA) and its subsequent Pell Grants and Stafford Loans. [...]her answer is yes: by expanding women's educational attainment, these policies helped establish women as first-class citizens, thereby strengthening their social and political participation. While not dismissing the importance of midcentury social movements, Rose argues that the NDEA, and even the HEA, preceded second-wave feminism. [...]rather than those movements prompting attention to women's needs, here they are rather downplayed as background to the political contexts and legislative skill of policymakers.