Education During the Great Depression

During the boom of the 1920s, the American education system had been growing and expanding rapidly. This meant that new schools were being built, new educational programs were being offered, and education became common amongst many, as more children were attending school. In fact, in Detroit, Michigan, the student population nearly doubled from 122,690 to 250,994 in just 10 years. People began to invest more money in schools, and as the demand for education grew, teaching became a more serious job. School superintendents got a raise in salary by about $200 during the 1931-1932 school year. Unfortunately, when the depression hit in 1932, school expenses began to drop dramatically, and the quality of schools began to decline. Most school districts were faced with a lot of debts from previous expansions in earlier years. In 1934, there was a total debt of about $137 million in Michigan school districts. As a result of these steep debts, business leaders demanded repayment of these debts, but when schools could not pay off their loans, tax leagues and bankers demanded cuts in both teachers' salaries and in educational programs. By 1935, the number of teachers, principals, and other faculty had been cut back so much that the capital outlay of schools had fallen back 20 years. Instead of growing, the education system had been relapsing, and the once high demand for education fell back and became something less significant.