ABSTRACT
Throughout the history of American higher education congressional mandates have impacted the course of university policies and missions (Altbach, Berdahl, & Gumport, 2005; Cohen, 1998; Lucas, 1994). From the Morrill Land Grant Acts of the nineteenth century to the Serviceman’s Readjustment Act (G.I. Bill) of 1944, federal legislation has been used as a way to ameliorate education opportunities across the country and between socioeconomic class and racial divides. Over the past fifty years, one of the most important pieces of federal legislation has been the Higher Education Act (HEA) of 1965. This legislation had several priorities, but its main intention was “to open the halls of higher education to a diverse set of students that had been historically underrepresented at the postsecondary level” (LBJ Library, n.d.).
