Nearly 70 years ago, in 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik , the first satellite to orbit the Earth, and U.S. national defense strategy would never be the same. It led to a massive increase in military expenditures and a significant boost in education spending through the 1958 National Defense Education Act .

The legislation greatly increased funding for students in higher education to study in fields deemed critical to the nation’s security, including math, science and engineering, and foreign languages.

In the decade that followed, the law was modified and resulted in the creation of two highly successful programs that continue to the present: Title VI of the 1965 Higher Education Act, which supports foreign language and area studies, and the Fulbright-Hays program, which buil

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