Editing National Defense Education Act (section)

==Cause and purpose==
The NDEA was influenced by the Soviet launch of the satellite [[Sputnik 1|Sputnik]] on October 4, 1957. U.S. citizens [[Sputnik crisis|feared]] that [[Education in the Soviet Union|education in the USSR]] was superior to [[Education in the United States|that in the United States]], and [[U.S. Congress|Congress]] reacted by adding the act to bring U.S. schools up to speed.<ref name=NPR2007/>

The year 1957 also coincided with an acute shortage of mathematicians in the United States. The electronic computer created a demand for mathematicians as programmers and it also shortened the lead time between the development of a new mathematical theory and its practical application, thereby making their work more valuable. The United States could no longer rely on European refugees for all of its mathematicians, though they remained an important source, so it had to drastically increase the domestic supply. At the time, "mathematics" was interpreted as pure mathematics rather than applied mathematics. The problem in the 1950s and 1960s was that industry, including defense, was absorbing the mathematicians who were also needed at high schools and universities training the next generation. At the university level, even more recently, there have been years when it was difficult to hire applied mathematicians and computer scientists because of the rate that industry was absorbing them.

Additionally, more high school graduates were beginning to attend college. In 1940 about one-half million Americans attended college, which was about 15 percent of their age group.<ref>Schwegler 18</ref> By 1960, however, college enrollments had expanded to 3.6 million. By 1970, 7.5 million students were attending colleges in the United States, or 40 percent of college-age youths.<ref>Schwegle 18-19</ref>

The act, therefore, was designed to fulfill two purposes. First, it was designed to provide the country with specific defense oriented personnel. This included providing federal help to foreign language scholars, area studies centers, and engineering students. Second it provided financial assistance—primarily through the National Defense Student Loan program—for thousands of students who would be part of the growing numbers enrolling at colleges and universities in the 1960s.<ref name="Schwegler 19"/>

NDEA established the National Defense Student Loan (NDSL) program to provide low-interest federal loans to "promising, yet needy students", and to enable them to pursue undergraduate and graduate educations.<ref name=":1" />  The national defense student loans were especially targeted toward students who possessed superior capacity in mathematics, engineering, or a modern foreign language or who desired to teach in elementary or secondary schools. A further intention of this loan program was to stimulate and assist in the establishment of loan programs at institutions of higher education through the provision of NDSL loans.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=Flattau |first=Pamela |date=March 2006 |title=The National Defense Education Act of 1958: Selected Outcomes |url=https://www.ida.org/-/media/feature/publications/t/th/the-national-defense-education-act-of-1958-selected-outcomes/d-3306.ashx}}</ref> The NDEA spurred the creation of federal and university funded college loan programs that still exist today.<ref name=":1" />

The 1959 [[Walt Disney Animation Studios|Disney]] [[featurette]] ''[[Donald in Mathmagic Land]]'' was produced and distributed with NDEA funding.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://dokumen.pub/if-einstein-ran-the-schools-revitalizing-u-s-education-2019948980-9781440869778-9781440869785.html|title=If Einstein Ran the Schools|author=Thomas Armstrong|year=2019|publisher=Praeger|access-date=November 20, 2021}}</ref>