(NOTE.-The following materials illustrate the dissemination activity undertaken by the officer of education with reference to the programs authorized under their various authorities with respect to aids provided students and institutions of higher education.) higher education How the Office of Education assists college students and colleges Compiled by the Bureau of Higher Education of the Office of Education Peter P. Muirhead, Associate Commissioner U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE Office of Education FOREWORD A significant partnership between the Government of the United States and institutions of higher education had its birth with the passage of the First Morrill Act of July 2, 1862. The Act provided the donation of public lands to the States and Territories, "which may provide colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts". A century later, the Higher Education Act of 1965, described by President Johnson as "...the noblest act of promise any Congress has ever created", demonstrated the breadth and depth of the relationship between government and higher learning as it had evolved in the last hundred years. It supplemented previous legislation supporting teacher preparation and expansion of physical resources. It provided for improvement of undergraduate instruction and strengthening of library facilities. It reached out to promising but struggling institutions to make possible their sharing of the higher quality faculty, previously unreachable. It offered assistance to those universities and colleges which wish to apply their special competencies and resources to the solution of community problems. Important provisions of the Act broaden the financial aid available to prospective college students to the end that an opportunity for a college education will be available to all that can benefit from it. An array of other legislation during recent years had provided Federal support for participation of institutions of higher education in such areas as education of the handicapped, encouragement of budding scientists, research and dissemination of educational information, assistance with problems of desegregation, recognition of special needs in vocational education, and foreign studies at home and abroad. Thirty of the programs come under the Bureau of Higher Education of the United States Office of Education, with the responsibility for most of the others in the Office's Bureau of Research, Bureau of Adult and Vocational Education, and Bureau of Elementary and Secondary Education. The initiative, the responsibility for specific plans and proposals, rests with the institutions, or in some instances with other non-profit agencies or with the states. In many cases the colleges and universities furnish funds from other financial sources to match the Government funds. The Federal programs aim to mobilize all available resources to strengthen and improve higher education. The intent of this booklet is to assist in the realization of this aim by providing colleges and universities, and their students, with ready information on how they may participate in the many programs now in operation. December 1966 Peter P. Muirhead |