The Cathedral of Learning: University in the United States
"...central to the Morrill Act was the idea that the federal government would financially support, at least to some degree, the interests of the individual states in creating public universities and supporting their mission; the much-delayed Blair Act, passed at the end of its namesake's career, extended that philosophy in part towards primary and in particular secondary education to support the vast expansion of the public school system. [1] But there had never been any explicit federal education program in and of itself other than West Point and the Naval Academy; with the University of the United States Act of 1916, this changed.
The Federal University of the United States - often known as the Federal University System - today is a small part of the broader American higher education system. Across six campuses in six different states, close to a hundred thousand students attend curated and particular degree programs, free of tuition or room and board, that are regarded as of "particular interest to the further development of the United States." The FUS is in some ways regarded as a step below the major public research universities and treated dismissively by some private institutions for its academic standards (despite the competitive application system that requires a Congressional recommendation) [2], but nonetheless serves an important cog in a bigger machine that has made the American university system the envy of the world.
At the time of its founding, however, it was a last-ditch compromise bill signed by outgoing President Hughes in the last stages of the Great American War to secure a long-held Liberal priority while acceding to a number of Democratic demands, such as tuition being entirely subsidized by the government for students and for parochial secondary school graduates being eligible to apply. Initially meant to be built on the grounds of the Smithsonian to help rebuild Washington, D.C. and to integrate with that institution (Hughes had hoped that the University of the United States would be called "Smithsonian University"), it would eventually be located at various sites in Philadelphia before the flagship campus was placed at its current siting near Penn and Drexel in University City in 1966 to create one of the largest concentrations of students in one place in the country. The ambitions for what would eventually become "Federal University at Philadelphia" were also remarkably small - it had indeed been intended to supplement the Smithsonian's work initially, and only allotted funding and slots for a hundred students as part of a broader act meant to inject more funding into universities struggling with low enrollment during the late stages of the war and prevent them from closing. Few, if any, of the bills signers could have imagined the FU System would be what it is today..."
- The Cathedral of Learning: University in the United States
[1] Suffice to say ITTL you will not have one of the two major parties attacking the idea of public education the way we see IOTL United States, not to get too into current politics, though education could and likely will have other fault lines associated with it politically
[2] I'm getting a bit niche with this post but I wanted to explore what kinds of clusterfucks you might still see with this alt-USA
The Federal University of the United States - often known as the Federal University System - today is a small part of the broader American higher education system. Across six campuses in six different states, close to a hundred thousand students attend curated and particular degree programs, free of tuition or room and board, that are regarded as of "particular interest to the further development of the United States." The FUS is in some ways regarded as a step below the major public research universities and treated dismissively by some private institutions for its academic standards (despite the competitive application system that requires a Congressional recommendation) [2], but nonetheless serves an important cog in a bigger machine that has made the American university system the envy of the world.
At the time of its founding, however, it was a last-ditch compromise bill signed by outgoing President Hughes in the last stages of the Great American War to secure a long-held Liberal priority while acceding to a number of Democratic demands, such as tuition being entirely subsidized by the government for students and for parochial secondary school graduates being eligible to apply. Initially meant to be built on the grounds of the Smithsonian to help rebuild Washington, D.C. and to integrate with that institution (Hughes had hoped that the University of the United States would be called "Smithsonian University"), it would eventually be located at various sites in Philadelphia before the flagship campus was placed at its current siting near Penn and Drexel in University City in 1966 to create one of the largest concentrations of students in one place in the country. The ambitions for what would eventually become "Federal University at Philadelphia" were also remarkably small - it had indeed been intended to supplement the Smithsonian's work initially, and only allotted funding and slots for a hundred students as part of a broader act meant to inject more funding into universities struggling with low enrollment during the late stages of the war and prevent them from closing. Few, if any, of the bills signers could have imagined the FU System would be what it is today..."
- The Cathedral of Learning: University in the United States
[1] Suffice to say ITTL you will not have one of the two major parties attacking the idea of public education the way we see IOTL United States, not to get too into current politics, though education could and likely will have other fault lines associated with it politically
[2] I'm getting a bit niche with this post but I wanted to explore what kinds of clusterfucks you might still see with this alt-USA
) is whether the difference between France & AH's relationship with the Catholic Church and Germany & Italy's relationship with the Catholic Church is *so* severe that the Pope would actually take sides with F&AH (to his eventual chagrin).