History of Adult Education in the 1990's: Prosperity and Recovery amidst Changing Cultural Tides

 

History of Adult Education in the 1990’s:

Prosperity and Recovery amidst Changing Cultural Tides

Bria Zolman

Ball State University

EDAC 631

Name	Commented On
Bria Zolman	Natalie Morris

 

Introduction

The 1990’s were years of economic prosperity in the United State. Families were less likely to be experiencing hardship due to recessive economic conditions than the previous decade. Inflation and unemployment were both low, giving American families room to grow and thrive. Dramatic changes were also happening within the demographics of the country, most notably in the categories of age and race. The ‘greying of America’ which continues to this day and began at the inception of our country can be observed by the ever increasing median age of Americans. “More Americans are old than ever before, and more older Americans are very old. The population aged 65 and over, growing twice as fast as the general population, was 22 percent larger in 1990 than a decade earlier” (Treas, 1995).  Additionally, increased immigration and growth in the foreign-born population were on the rise. Racial and ethnic diversity increased over 10% from the two previous decades (Harrison, 1995). American culture was changing, the effects of which were evidenced in the field of Adult Education.

Coming into the decade, adult education was a topic of Congressional conversation for the first time in history. President George H.W. Bush had recently convened an Education Summit and along with 50 governors had agreed to set National Goals (U.S Department of Education, 2013). This summit was precipitated by the results of nationwide surveying that occurred in the 1980’s and revealed that 1 in 8 adults in America could not read and a staggering 47% of adults scored lower than levels needed to “function at a minimum standard of proficiency” (U.S. Department of Education, 2013). President Ronald Reagan had laid the groundwork for increased national attention on the state of education among American adults, and the response to the crisis in adult literacy was poised to take effect in the 1990’s.

 

Highlights

The increased interest in adult literacy of the 1980’s made way for increases in funding and focus on adult education in the 1990’s. By July of 1991, President Bush had signed the National Literacy Act, a bill that made grant funding available to states for increasing their adult education programming. State Literacy Resource Centers were mandated and for the first time federal funds were provided for National Workforce Demonstration Programs. “The programs were intended to serve adults who needed to improve their literacy skills in order to improve job performance. The projects needed to provide services directly related to improvement of literacy skills required in the workplace, ranging from adult basic skills, English as a Second Language programs, and adult diploma programs, as well as support services such as transportation, counseling, and childcare” (National Literacy Act, 1991). The Even Start program required existing child literacy programs to expand services to include the literacy education of the entire family. Funding was also provided to provide literacy training for individuals who were incarcerated.

Formal adult education programs saw a staggering increase in enrollment in the 1990’s. Up from only 14% participation in 1984, by the 1990’s reports indicated 40% of adults in America participated in adult education programs (Hamil-Luker; Ulenburg, 2022). There was also an increase in non-traditional students in higher ed. Up from 10% in 1970, by the year 2000 21% of learners were over the age of 35 (Hamil-Luker; Ulenburg, 2002). This trend reflects the aging of the baby boomers, who were more highly educated as a cohort than any generation that proceeded them. This generation of baby boomers becoming adults predictably contributed rapid population growth in the country, as they began families of their own. America grew by almost thirty-three million people during the nineteen nineties, the largest increase of any decade in its history. By the end of the nineties more than two hundred eighty-million people were living in the United States.

Due to the efforts imposed in the National Literacy Act, those participating in adult education increased across all ages, genders, races, education levels, employment statuses and occupational groups over the course of the decade (U.S Department of Education, 1991, 1999). In 1991 the National Household Education Survey revealed that middle aged adults were the most likely to participate in adult education, possibly due to financial support from employers being invested in younger employees. But by the end of the decade, increases in adult education had increased over all demographics, with only the over 55 group participating at lower rates. Adults with higher levels of education were found to be more likely to seek additional opportunities for training. Full time workers participated at a higher rate than those who were retired. Adult education was the working person’s way to achieve higher levels of title and pay in their fields (U.S Department of Education, 1991, 1999).

 

Influential Factors

Family life in the 1990’s saw a major shift from the preceding generations. Most notably, the nuclear family structure became far less common as single family households increased. Additionally, single-parent homes increased as a result of increased divorce and incarceration rates. The average age at which young people married also increased and more and more women were opting to work outside of the home. With the increase in single family households, also came an increase in poverty (McLanahan, Casper, 1995).  

Another cultural factor that effected the family was the rise of the Internet. By the late 90’s the internet was accessible to most middle and upper class American families. The internet also began to evolve from a defense project mainly linking researchers into a new way for the world to communicate (Leiner, Cerf, Clark, et al., 1997). The new accessibility of computers with internet access began to change the face of education, especially within schools. Typing on computers replaced type-writers in high schools, and colleges incentivized new students with complementary desktop computers for their dormitories’. University libraries boasted 24 hour access to computer labs for those without personal computers and one’s ability to be educated now included their skills with technology. Those young adults in Generation X had a large advantage over their baby boomer predecessors who were trying to remain relevant in an ever changing technological world.

One of the most prominent providers of adult education were the labor unions which were now receiving federal funding under the National Literacy Act. People took adult education courses predominantly to improve or advance in their current jobs. This was especially true for those people who worked in the labor field. Labor unions and professional associations were among the larger providers of adult education, but most programs were tailored to those in management (not service technicians).

One influential leader in the labor union force was John Sweeney. Early in his career, Sweeney took a two-thirds pay cut in order to invest in research for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. He would later go on to become the president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) where he led strikes, negotiated contracts and dramatically grew the membership of the organization (Greenhouse, 1995). Sweeney’s impact was wide felt among labor activists throughout the 1990’s, with the major of his efforts aimed at effecting change in organizational structure and raising up political activists, as opposed to promoting the daily education of his members. Despite this fact, he did much to position labor unions to work for the betterment of the lives of the working adult.

The impact of Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton on the adult education field can also not be neglected. As a part of the National Goals coming out of his Education Summit, President Bush drafted Goal 6, which stated: “By the year 2000, every adult in America will be literate and will possess the knowledge and skills necessary to compete in a global economy and exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.” In his 1997 State of the Union address, President Clinton shared with Congress wishes that “Every 8-year-old must be able to read; every 12-year-old must be able to log on to the Internet; every 18-year-old must be able to go to college; and every adult American must be able to keep on learning for a lifetime” (U.S. Department of Education, 2013). Whether or not these Presidents effectively achieved their desires for the education of Americans, their terms in office were, in part, dedicated to these efforts.

 

Implications

 

Going into the 1990’s, the state of adult education was in dire need of reform. Due to significant attention at the federal level through National Household Education Surveys and the National Literacy Act, “during the five-year period FY1995-FY1999, over 2 million welfare recipients were enrolled in state grant programs and nearly 145,000 homeless adults received adult education services” (U.S. Department of Education, Office of Vocational and Adult Education/Division of Adult Education and Literacy, 2000). Given the large growth in college-aged adults, not-surprisingly 4 year colleges saw significant increases in enrollment. Unfortunately these increases in enrollment corresponded with increased cost of attendance. Growing faster than inflation and peaking in the mid-90’s, the cost of attending a 4 year college in America peaked at about the same time as jobs in American began requiring a degree for career attainment. In 1973 only 29% of jobs required a college degree. By 1992, 52% did (Snyder, 2012). This trend continued into the 2000’s with a projected 62% requiring advanced degrees by 2018.

 

This left American families, now with more single-family, single-parent homes than ever accumulating insurmountable amounts of student loan debt in order to obtain the degrees necessary for their fields of choice. At the same time, job saturation across fields found many graduates struggling to find jobs, or finding jobs whose salaries could not make a dent in the debt they had acquired in their degree pursuit (Snyder, 2012). In response to the rising costs of 4 year, residential colleges, many states saw rapid growth and rise of the community college. These non-residential, small scale institutions could offer 2 year degrees and professional certifications with much lower enrollment costs. The 1990’s saw the beginning of the student debt crisis we are now watching play out in current debt relief efforts. Community colleges were the natural response to the socio-economic and cultural trends playing out in institutes of higher education in the late 1990’s.

 

Conclusion

 

Adult education in America was under heightened scrutiny from the federal government. Jobs in America required college degrees to higher extents, and those working in non-degreed fields had to keep up with the changes in technology brought on by the dawn of the internet. National surveys revealed significant deficits in adult literacy in the previous decade. The prosperity of the economy in the 1990’s and the emergence of baby boomers to the work force gave new life to the work of labor unions and workforce development programs. Growth in adult education occurred across all demographics, however it is unclear whether the impact of this heightened attention lead to anything more than increased debt for America’s most over-educated generation to date.

 

Table 1

 

Area	Summaries
Social Background	Adult Literacy Crisis, Dawn of Internet, Boomers start families, Racial/ethnic diversity growth
Highlights	National Surveys, National Literacy Act, Even Start, Population Growth,
Influential Factors	Structure of the Family, G.HW Bush, Bill Clinton, John Sweeney, Importance of the Labor Union, the Internet
Implications	National Household Education Surveys, Rise of Community Colleges

 

 

Resources

Treas, J., & Torrecilha, R. (1995). The Older Population. In R. Farley (Ed.), State of the Union: America in the 1990s, Volume 2: Social Trends (pp. 47–92). Russell Sage Foundation. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7758/9781610441971.7 

U.S Bureau of Census (1993). Current population reports, Series P-25, No. 1095, U.S Population Estimates by Age, Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin, 1980-1990: Table 1.

Harrison, R. J., & Bennett, C. E. (1995). Racial and ethnic diversity. In R. Farley (Ed.), State of the Union: America in the 1990s, Volume 2: Social Trends (pp. 141–210). Russell Sage Foundation. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7758/9781610441971.9

U.S. Department of Education, Office of Vocational and Adult Education (2013). Federal adult education: a legislative history 1964-2013. Washington, DC: the Department. pp. 20-23.

Hamil-Luker, J., & Ulenburg, P. (2002). Later life education in the 1990s: Increasing involvement and continuing disparity. The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, Volume 57, Issue 6, November 2002, Pages S324–S331, https://doi.org/10.1093/geronb/57.6.S324

McLanahan, S., & Casper, L. (1995). Growing Diversity and Inequality in the American Family. In R. Farley (Ed.), State of the Union: America in the 1990s, Volume 2: Social Trends (pp. 1–46). Russell Sage Foundation. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7758/9781610441971.6

 

U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Adult Education Survey of the National Household Education Surveys Program, 1991 and 1999.

 

Greenhouse, Steven (1995). Man in the news: John Joseph Sweeney. New York Times, October, 1995.

 

Leiner, Barry; Cerf, Vinton; Clark, David, et al. (1997). Brief history of the internet. Internet society. Retrieved from https://www.internetsociety.org/internet/history-internet/brief-history-internet/, Feb 5^th, 2023.

 

Snyder, Thomas J., (2012). The community college career track: how to achieve the American dream without a mountain of debt. John Wiley & Sons, inc. Hoboken, New Jersey.