Many people have helped me with the preparation of this work, and I am pleased to acknowledge their assistance. The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators provided a research grant which enabled me to spend time in Washington; they also made available their files and gave me free rein to explore as I wished. I am grateful to them for providing the funding which permitted me to conduct the research and for allowing me to pursue their history without restricting my inquiries. This freedom was understood from the beginning of the project, when a committee composed of Neil Bolyard, the Association’s Historian, Dallas Martin, its Executive Director, and William Bennett, its 1984-85 President, kindly selected me to receive the research grant. I hope they will find that the history thus produced justifies both their investment of financial resources and their faith in academic freedom.

The staff of the NASFAA central office, particularly Dallas Martin, Joan Holland, and Marty Guthrie, were unfailingly responsive to my persistent requests for additional data and insight. I am appreciative of their efforts. Numerous members of the Association gladly offered their comments in personal interviews; I am especially grateful for the opportunity to discuss my interpretations with Edson Sample, who probably knows more of the history of NASFAA than anyone else alive. I also deeply appreciate Ed Sample’s careful reading of a draft of this work and I am indebted to him for his insightful and helpful comments.

J. Allen Norris, Jr., President of Louisburg College, offered me generous release time from my duties at that institution so that I might conduct my research unfettered by daily work obligations. For his constant support and encouragement I am indeed thankful. In addition, I wish to acknowledge the willingness of staff members at the College to assume greater work burdens in my absence. I particularly wish to thank Phama Mullen, Director of Admissions, Missy Rose, Director of Financial Aid, and Carolyn White, Registrar, for their cheerful handling of these larger duties.

An earlier version of this study was prepared as a dissertation at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I am particularly indebted to Julio R. George, who directed my efforts and provided essential advice on numerous occasions. His friendship and support meant much during my years at the University. Other members of my committee, Samuel M. Holton, Donald G. Mathews, George W. Noblit, and Eugene R. Watson, also gave liberally of their time and effort in helping me focus the study, aiding me both in understanding the larger context of the Association’s history and in refining the conceptual framework employed in its study.

Finally, my wife, Jennie, and my children, Spence and Hunter, have been willing to surrender our evenings and weekends, normally spent in family pursuits, to the constant whirring of the word processor and to my resulting inattention to their needs. Their support throughout the research and writing has been crucial to my efforts, and I hope they will find the finished product to be worthy of the sacrifices they have made.

Steven Brooks
Louisburg, North Carolina

Steven Brooks’ history chronicles many of the events and individuals that have been involved in developing the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. This publication, the first of its kind, provides a written and well-documented record of the Association’s origins in 1966 through its first twenty years of existence. It traces the tentative beginnings of NASFAA through the establishment of its national office in Washington, D.C., in 1972, on into its current position of being the largest postsecondary institutionally-based organization in the nation’s capital and the premier association speaking on a national level for the interests of student financial assistance.

Those of us whose names appear below had the privilege of serving as president of the Association, and as such are mentioned throughout the pages of the text. While we all take great pride in the accomplishments of the past, the real strength of the Association has been and continues to be in its people. While no history can acknowledge fully the contributions made by the hundreds of members who have served and assisted NASFAA through the past two decades, we can be assured that the challenges of the future will continue to be met by the same kind of dedicated and professional people that have served in the past.

1966-1969 Allan W. Purdy, University of Missouri

1969-1970 Kenneth L. Wooten, University of Mississippi

1970-1971 H. Carroll Parish, University of California at Los Angeles

1971-1972 Grant E. Curtis, Tufts University

1972-1974 Eunice L. Edwards, Fisk University

1974-1975 Edson W. Sample, Indiana University

1975-1976 Robert B. Clark, Oklahoma State University

1976-1977 Mildred S. McAuley, Grossmont College

1977-1978 Joe L. McCormick, Mississippi State University

1978-1979 Neil E. Bolyard, West Virginia University

1979-1980 Robert P. Huff, Stanford University

1980-1981 Gene S. Miller, Pasadena City College

1981-1982 Donald E. Holec, Purdue University

1982-1983 Lola J. Finch, Washington State University

1983-1984 Mary Haldane, Drake University

1984-1985 William R. Bennett, Cleveland State University

1985-1986 Gerald T. Bird, University of Alabama at Birmingham

The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) began nearly twenty years ago as an effort on the part of a small group of aid administrators to coordinate more effectively the efforts of regional associations of financial aid. The early organization was fragile, incomplete, and utterly lacking in financial resources. What little political influence it mustered was based on the personal contacts of a few of its members, not upon the reputation of the organization itself. By the end of the 1960s the organization still lacked financial stability although it had begun significant internal development. Through its first decade of existence NASFAA struggled valiantly to exert an influence on the federal policies regarding student aid programs, yet, in the active legislative years of 1972 and 1976 the real influence lay with other organizations. After 1976, however, NASFAA had made sufficient progress in both its internal and environmental scanning mechanisms that it rapidly rose to a position of prominence. ("Scanning" refers to the process of identifying future trends which will have an impact on the organization, either positive or negative. Scanning may be performed internally or upon the environment within which the organization exists. In this latter instance it may be termed "environmental" or "boundary" scanning). By 1978 the organization played a significant role in the creation of new financial aid legislation, and in 1980 its Executive Director actually drafted large portions both of the legislation which reauthorized the federal student assistance programs and of the regulations which would govern the campus administration of those programs.

Today NASFAA has become the largest institutionally based membership organization among the Washington, D.C., higher education associations. It has evolved into the major association speaking on a national level for the interests of student financial assistance. It has nearly 3,200 institutional members, a central office in Washington, a full-time staff of thirteen, an annual operating budget in excess of $1.8 million, and a strong influence on national policy regarding higher education based upon its recognized technical expertise and insight concerning student financial aid. The Association publishes a number of important and useful monographs and special reports, a newsletter, a scholarly journal, a series monitoring the regulatory proposals of the federal government concerning the administration of student aid programs (normally distributed well in advance of the appearance of these proposals in the official Federal Register). NASFAA also publishes other items of a specialized nature, including the recent Encyclopedia of Student Financial Aid, which provides an authoritative, comprehensive, and unique guide to the myriad of federal regulations governing aid programs. Both the scope and quality of NASFAA publications evince the Association’s expertise in the field of student financial aid.

The rise of NASFAA to such prominence has been inextricably bound to the larger history of federal involvement in student aid; a recounting of the details of the organization’s history should therefore provide insight into the larger context of federal philosophy related to student assistance. A number of scholars have focused on federal aid policies in recent years, and much of their discussion has been devoted to federal policy goals.

Indeed, many writers have concluded that there have been no underlying goals for the federal role — that it has instead evolved in piecemeal fashion, in response to transitory popular desires. Among these scholars is a view of the political process as strictly pragmatic; and while they give some recognition to the emphasis on aid to the needy shared by the major federal student assistance programs, they devote more attention to the peculiar nature and constituency of each program. Beck (1971) saw these programs as responses to particular situations, and thus he viewed each as narrow and independent of the others, seeing little overall goal or policy behind the federal efforts in student assistance. McCormick (1972) agreed with an interpretation of the aid programs as responses to historical circumstances, while Edward Sanders (1975) chose instead to accentuate the wide variety of interests to which policymakers reacted in developing the aid initiatives. Among those interests cited by Sanders were support to institutions of higher education and support to needy students. Van Dusen (1979, p. 4), argued that the federal government had made no "comprehensive attempt to achieve a coherent set of public purposes" during its nearly twenty-five years of offering aid to students in higher education. Jensen (1983, pp. 287-289) emphasized instead a series of federal objectives which changed according to the current political milieu, moving progressively from manpower enhancement in the 1950s to anti-poverty efforts in the 1960s, student-centered aid in the early 1970s, recognition of a politically potent middle class in the late 1970s, and retrogression under Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. Fenske (1983, p. 11), while acknowledging the underlying support for higher education evinced by the federal aid programs, still referred to the efforts as a "patchwork quilt." Herndon (1984, p. 3) agreed that there had been a "proliferation of programs" resulting from "the apparent absence of explicit purpose" in the federal efforts.

Other writers, however, have chosen to stress the underlying commitment to aiding the needy which has been demonstrated in the federal programs. Rudolph (1962), writing at the time a new anti-poverty consensus was forming in America, emphasized this goal of opening the doors of postsecondary education to all. After the 1965 Higher Education Act institutionalized this objective Henry (1969, p. 227) saw a "national commitment to equal access to higher education, regardless of financial ability." Trotter (1975) extended the broad goal articulated by Henry, describing the commitment as promoting some measure of choice of educational experience as well as access to some form of higher education. Moon (1975) referred to this national purpose as an underlying concern with equality of educational opportunity, while Charles Saunders (1982) emphasized the loss of this common understanding during the Reagan presidency. Moore (1983), although emphasizing the differences in intent and administrative requirements of the various federal aid initiatives, chose also to stress the common bond of a basis in meeting the needs of those unable to pay their own way in colleges or universities. Higgins (1983) agreed that the programs shared this bond, while Gillespie and Carlson (1983) argued that of the existing federal programs, those which were "generally available" — authorized under Title IV of the Higher Education Act — evidenced a deep federal commitment to equalizing educational opportunity.

Among all the authors who have examined the purposes of the federal efforts in student financial assistance, Gladieux and Wolanin (1976) have perhaps offered the most satisfactory analysis of the federal policymaking field. They argue that by 1972 there had evolved in the United States a "basic consensus on the proper federal role in relation to higher education." New policies, according to Gladieux and Wolanin, are historically not created through a vast uprooting of existing practices; rather, programs in place are the customary beginning points for subsequent federal activity. Current procedures and practices, that is, customarily and frequently define the practical limits of political debate. The same authors posited a model of the federal "policy arena," in which are made national decisions relating to higher education. This arena, bounded by political realities as perceived by the actors within it, contains a subgovernment of close, longstanding connections among members and staffs of the House Subcommittee on Postsecondary Education, the Senate Subcommittee on Education, the U. S. Office (or Department) of Education and selected "Washington representatives of higher education associations" (p. 252). It is within this subgovernment that political actions are debated and decided. In the 1972 arena, Gladieux and Wolanin argue, NASFAA was not among those higher education associations comprising the true subgovernment. King (1975) has outlined the roles of the higher education associations and has confirmed the lack of influence of the aid administrators in the early 1970s.

Gladieux and Wolanin have further developed their model of the policy arena to account for three environmental factors which together form its boundaries. The first is termed "political culture," the fundamental societal consensus which defines the limits of public debate. The culture reflects broad agreement on federal policy goals and the means to be employed in attaining those goals. This culture is not static; rather, it reflects "a moving consensus" (p. 255). By 1972 that culture was evolving toward the assumption by the federal government of a greater role in the field of higher education, aimed primarily at the quest for equal educational opportunity.

The second set of forces bounding the policy arena are public attitudes toward higher education. Insofar as higher education has come to be regarded as an enterprise essential both to the well-being of society and to the development of the potential of the individual within society, public support for higher education has increased. Nevertheless, Gladieux and Wolanin argue that there is an essential difference in the public attitudes supporting higher education and those surrounding, say, crime control. While both issues may be regarded by the general population as proper and even necessary areas for federal policy, the needs of higher education lack the urgency attached to crime control in the public perception. This view of aid to higher education as desirable but not pressing has colored the policy arena and the decisions made within it. This in turn is related to a third constraint on the policy arena, the availability of resources. While student aid had experienced a "bull market" (p. 256) through 1976 — as it would continue to do throughout the 1970s, the Gladieux and Wolanin model recognized the effect public attitudes regarding the urgency of higher education programs would have in an era of diminished resources.

The model of the policy arena bounded by a moving consensus reconciles the apparent conflict between those scholars who have emphasized the fragmented nature of diverse federal student aid programs which lack overall purpose and those who have instead stressed that an underlying theme of equal opportunity for higher education unites the modern federal efforts. Those who argue for "no goals" question the rationale behind a federal system offering to the general population three different grant and two different loan programs, dependent upon three different methods of eligibility determination. Their response to this question has been the argument that aid programs have been targeted at momentarily popular social goals, often in reaction to a crisis real or perceived, with a lack of overall purpose or conceptual clarity, and in an irregular and haphazard fashion. This emphasis, insofar as it goes, seems quite accurate, and a compelling case can be made in its support. Yet it misses the underlying ideology which has evolved in support of federal involvement in student financial aid. This ideology is the political culture defined by Gladieux and Wolanin; its evolving consensus had not yet been fully articulated in 1958 when the National Defense Education Act was passed by Congress. By 1972 the consensus had been formed around the rationale of equal opportunity, probably as much because of Lyndon Johnson’s assault on poverty as for any other reason. Since 1972 the consensus has experienced numerous shifts; it continues and must by its nature continue to undergo modification.

Perhaps it is this changeable nature of the underlying ideology which has caused Van Dusen (1979) to muse that the federal efforts have the appearance of Rube Goldberg architecture; nevertheless, he concluded, the system which Goldberg could well have designed has one uniting feature: it works well for large numbers of students. Perhaps this good effect is achieved because, no matter how diverse in appearance the programs are, they are all reasonably consistent with the underlying ideology of democracy in the United States. Presidents Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter, each in different ways and at different times, emphasized the desirability of a national commitment to access to higher education regardless of family ability to pay its ever-increasing costs. Even the Reagan Administration, with its antipathy to domestic spending for the social welfare, has been unable to argue publicly against this national consensus. Their arguments instead have focused on overexpenditures in an era of finite resources, claiming that federal largesse has undermined the traditional family responsibility to finance postsecondary education when able to do so. Their case against student aid, then, has been made not on the basis of public disagreement with the rationale undergirding it, but rather on grounds that it has become excessive. The public attitudes bounding the policy arena, then, appear to continue to support the role of the federal government in providing access to educational opportunity. The consensus has shifted, but its shifts have come within a narrow band of pervasive public agreement; it would require a revolution in basic values seemingly beyond even the popularity of the Reagan reaction to effect a denial of the goal of equal opportunity.

Even student aid critic Chester Finn (1985), current Assistant Secretary for Educational Research and Improvement in the United States Department of Education, in arguing for the "desanctification" of student aid, has emphasized the underlying rationale which supports the existing programs. Finn tends to see aid efforts as value-free; that is, he stresses the market forces which are affected by the aid programs. He argues that the federal role has been rather fragmented because it is based upon a divided understanding of who benefits from higher education — sometimes the individual, sometimes the society at large, and sometimes the institutions of higher education themselves have been viewed by policymakers as the intended beneficiaries of federal financial aid. Yet even in this somewhat jaundiced view of the philosophy behind federal student assistance Finn acknowledges common purposes which engender that assistance. "The primary rationale underlying most of the large federal student aid programs," he admits, concerns three related ideas — increasing "social mobility," fostering "equality of opportunity," and lessening "the importance of private wealth" (p. 3). It is revealing of the depth of the prevailing political culture that even five years into the "Reagan revolution" Finn argues of means rather than ends.

NASFAA, then, has existed during a period of remarkable consistency within a strong and stable political culture. Indeed, the Association, in its own philosophy of emphasis on the welfare of students rather than of institutions, has in many ways served for its members as the practical embodiment of that culture. Little has been written on the history of NASFAA; aside from two brief, unpublished papers prepared a decade ago, there is no secondary literature on the Association’s history.

There does exist a collection of primary documents, including copies of Minutes, correspondence, publications, reports and records of committees, and the NASFAA Oral History Project tapes. This last resource contains approximately seventy hours of the recorded recollections of key individuals from the student aid community, representing a time period of roughly 1954-1983. In addition, there is Edson Sample’s NASFAA Fact Book, which contains a collection of numerous Association documents and statistics in a format which is revised quarterly to reflect additional information. This reference is an invaluable guide to the history of NASFAA; it presents a variety of data without editorial comment. Further, since the Association is still relatively young, most of its members are still living and available for personal interviews when needed. Taken together, these primary sources provide a rich set of materials for the historian.

A study of NASFAA’s history would be worthwhile in itself for the members of the Association. More importantly, however, such a study can also reveal additional knowledge of the political arena and the underlying culture within which NASFAA has existed. From a history of the Association we may expect to gain a better understanding of federal policymaking for higher education — who have been the principal players within the policy arena and how have the subgovernment and its underlying political culture evolved over the past two decades of NASFAA’s existence? While such a study would not be designed as an intensive analysis of federal policymaking, it should provide a perspective on the higher education policy arena.

Another potential use of a study of the history of NASFAA may be to reveal elements of the behavior of a certain type of organization. Blau and Scott (1962) classified organizations according to the concept of cui bono — who benefits. Using this concept they identified four distinct possibilities: business organizations, which operate for the purposes of their owners; mutual benefit organizations, which exist to serve their members; service organizations, which are centered on their clients’ interests; and commonweal organizations, which are designed to benefit the public at large.

Each of these organizational types has a different set of central problems and characteristics. The business organization confronts the problem of maximizing efficiency in a competitive situation. The mutual benefit organization has the central problem of maintaining internal democracy, avoiding both member apathy and oligarchical control. The possibilities of apathy and oligarchy are related; as more members become apathetic and leave the running of the organization to others, there is a greater chance that a ruling elite will emerge. Further, the existence of such an oligarchy, barring actions on its part which inflame the passions of the rank and file, tends to promote the apathetic attitude among members that the organization runs well enough without additional member input. Service organizations must deal with the conflict inherent between the interests of their clients and the administrative procedures which may frustrate the professional orientation of their members. The components of professionalism, especially those dealing with autonomy in decision-making and collegial support, can create conflict with the rule-oriented, hierarchical model of some service organizations. In these settings the classic dysfunctions of bureaucracy seem magnified. The final organizational type, the commonweal organization, has as its central problem the development of democratic mechanisms which the public (its beneficiary) can control. While at first glance NASFAA would seem to be a mutual benefit organization, further exploration of its history may reveal the Association to bear characteristics of more than one of the Blau and Scott types. This seems particularly likely given the stated values of the Association, which are centered primarily on the well-being of the student-client, and the underlying rationale for student aid as benefiting not only the individual student but also the public at large.

The work of Peters and Waterman (1982) can also supply an effective method of focus in approaching NASFAA’s history as a study of organizational behavior over time. Their study of the excellence of corporations was derived from their McKinsey 7-S Framework, which rejects the normative, rationalist approach to studies of organizational behavior and moves beyond the traditional dichotomy of emphasis on either structure or people. Rather than viewing an organization in terms of the conflict between its structural arrangements and its effective use of its human resources, the McKinsey 7-S model proposes a set of seven interdependent variables as the focus for inquiry. Each of these variables is related to the others, and they are all clustered around a centerpiece, called organizational culture or shared values.

The model lends itself to a study of an organization over time as well as to a present day inspection of operations; by looking at each component variable of the organization during different periods of its past one may learn much about its evolutionary processes. For the sake of simplicity, Peters and Waterman described each variable with a word beginning with an "s" — strategies, systems, structure, skills, style, staff, and shared values. Of these the first three are related to the task orientation of the organization, while the next three are more descriptive of its relationship orientation. They are united by the seventh variable, shared values.

Strategies represent the goals of the organization as well as its specific plans for the attainment of those goals. Systems are the precise institutional arrangements made in order to effect these strategies; the systems are designed to accomplish specified tasks related to organizational input, throughput, output, boundary scanning, and the like. Structure refers specifically to the organizational chart. Is the organization hierarchical or more democratic? Is it the same in reality as on paper? Structure also includes those systems which relate to the goal of organizational viability; in that sense structure represents the "macro-system" of an organization. Skills refer to the present and potential abilities of the organization’s members and leaders; in an Association such as NASFAA they would describe the expectations of the membership. The style of the organization illustrates its methods of managing its concerns; does its style, for example, foster the development and effective use of organizational resources, or does it instead lead to inefficiency and duplication of effort? The staff must be included among the variables since, regardless of what structural elements are in place or what expectations the membership may have about the functioning of an association, the organization can only be as good as are the people who run its day to day operations.

A final benefit to be derived from a study of the history of NASFAA may be insight into the emergence of a new administrative level in higher education. While the standard works on the history of American education inform their readers concerning the larger context of postsecondary education (cf. Cremin, Rudolph, Brubacher, Jencks and Riesman, Brubacher and Rudy, and Sanford), there is little mention within them of student aid. The subject is a relatively recent phenomenon in the history of American higher education, at least insofar as its importance to the success of the enterprise is concerned. Perhaps a history of the major Association representing the interests of those who administer the aid programs will reveal the central values which have shaped this new area. Those values, of course, have not developed in a vacuum, and more general works on social history of the United States during the formative years of the Association will also be helpful. Three of the best of these are Matusow (1982), Viorst (1981), and O’Neill (1972).

The method employed in this study of NASFAA, then, will encompass an appreciation of the larger social history of the United States and the role of higher education within that history. It will also emphasize the organizational theories of Blau and Scott and Peters and Waterman while attempting to reveal something of the working of the federal political process over the past thirty years. The procedure chosen for this analysis is a chronological review of the operations of the Association, with purposive emphasis on the McKinsey 7-S Framework variables and the problems identified by Blau and Scott as central to various types of organizations.

With the passage of the National Defense Education Act of 1958, the United States entered a new era in its longstanding support for higher education. While student aid, based on need for funding, had existed since 1643 (when Lady Anne Mowlson made a gift of one hundred pounds to Harvard University for the benefit of a "poor scholler"), governmental support had not customarily been centered on student assistance. The appropriation of public lands for universities in admitting new states in the early nineteenth century and the creation of the land grant colleges in 1862 characterized the limited role of the federal government in higher education prior to the twentieth century. With the depression of the 1930s came a variety of government programs designed to assist individuals; among these the National Youth, Administration included funds for the employment of college students. This program, however, was designed with the same basic idea as other New Deal efforts: to "provide young people with something to do" as opposed to providing assistance to promote access to higher education (Purdy, Parish, and Wooten, 1975, p. 1). In 1944 the "G.I. Bill" enabled thousands of veterans of the armed forces to pay the costs of postsecondary education; this Act, which represented the desire of the nation to reward its veterans for their military service, had the secondary impact of popularizing the idea that large numbers of people could benefit from a college education (McCormick, 1972).

Still, in the decade after World War II there was no popular demand for federal involvement in student assistance. In 1957, however, an external event galvanized public opinion. The Soviet launching of Sputnik in the fall of that year evoked an outcry from the American people, who were culturally unprepared to be second-best in anything, especially second to the Russians in outer space. Would the Soviets press their new scientific superiority into advanced weaponry? How had Americans allowed such a dangerous event to take place? Who was to blame for the apparent American inferiority? Certainly not the Congress, that body promptly asserted. The real problem, the Congress said, lay in "the ‘weakness’ of the American educational system" and required a "new, dynamic, and total commitment to the problems facing higher education" (McCormick, 1972).

The National Defense Education Act was one result of this new "commitment." If America lacked scientists and mathematicians, it must find them. To do so it must be certain that no talented individual would be denied an opportunity for the training required to develop his or her needed skills. Among the provisions of the new Act was the National Defense Student Loan (NDSL) program, designed to assist needy students planning studies in science or mathematics or preparing to become educators in those subjects. Unlike the G.I. Bill, this aid was to be based on a demonstrated need for funds; it was to function not as a reward for prior service but as a means of assuring the nation an adequate supply of people trained in essential fields. While this aid was therefore targeted at a special group, its emphasis on demonstrated need as a qualification for assistance set a precedent for future federal efforts. Also important for the future was the provision that NDSL would be administered not through a central lending bank, but on campuses participating in the program.

From the beginning of this new federal involvement in addressing the goal of access to higher education, then, there was a reliance on the ability of the campus to administer the available aid. At the time of passage of the National Defense Education Act of 1958, there was no federal definition of "need." There was simply a vague requirement in the law that loan funds be awarded exclusively to those "in need" of assistance; yet no guidance was offered on how those students were to be identified. This lack of regulation, according to Peter Muirhead, Executive Deputy Commissioner of the U. S. Office of Education, was intentional. The "concept of turning to the university community," he recalled, was already established; consequently the "federal government relied upon the college community to determine need" (Muirhead, 1980). Many institutions, when left with this flexibility, elected to use the methodology which had been recently developed by the College Scholarship Service (CSS) of the College Entrance Examination Board (Moore, 1983, p. 44).

This group, which was directed by Rexford Moon from a New York headquarters, based much of its early efforts into need analysis on the work of John Munro, Director of Financial Aid at Harvard. The Harvard system of measuring need had been refined by a group of western colleges and universities, which developed common procedures and forms for the analysis. A group of eastern institutions then brought about a similar process of refinement, and by 1956 a tentative national system, developed by the higher education community for use in awarding institutional aid, was in place. Edward Sanders, who later served as Director of the College Board’s Washington office, has argued that the earliest motive for the development of the College Scholarship Service system involved not only a dedication to equal opportunity but also a desire to avoid expensive competition for student enrollment. By having a standard system designed to measure the ability to pay, institutions could have a rationale for offering assistance to prospective students; by agreeing on a common system they could avoid "bidding" on a student (Sanders, 1982). Regardless of motive, however, the establishment of a system based upon measuring the ability of a student and his or her family to pay for the costs of education provided the beginnings of a philosophy that aid should be awarded on the basis of need. The system also provided a reason for financial aid administrators to meet together, first in developing and refining the methodology and later in training themselves and their colleagues in computation of need (Purdy et al., 1975, pp. 2-3).

Those who attended these early meetings were rather a diverse group of collegiate employees; only a few colleges and universities had by 1958 designated any individual by title similar to "Director of Financial Aid." Existing scholarships and other forms of aid had been administered in a variety of ways at different institutions. With the ascendancy of the College Scholarship Service idea of need-based assistance, however, colleges began increasingly to recognize the desirability of having at least one administrator trained in need analysis. This recognition was hastened by the passage of the NDSL program, and newly designated aid administrators were drawn from the ranks of faculty members, admissions officers, and student services personnel (Huff, 1985, pp. 98-99).

While the College Scholarship Service was the dominant group in the early training and associational activities of the members of a newly emerging branch of higher educational administration, two other groups were also active in exploring financial aid issues. One, which was devoted to the concerns of Deans of Students, was the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators. The second group, the American College Personnel Association (ACPA), was more concerned with the interests of counselors. Both groups established "commissions" to work on financial aid administration; but neither group made a real commitment to soliciting the membership of financial aid administrators on a national basis. While some aid administrators did join each association, it remained the College Scholarship Service which was seen as the national organization for these new professionals (Purdy et al., 1975, p.2).

By the early 1960s the College Scholarship Service (and its parent organization, the College Entrance Examination Board), had developed influence over national policy, as had the umbrella presidential higher education association, the American Council on Education (ACE). Insofar as postsecondary educators helped determine governmental policy on education, federal efforts in the early 1960s were primarily shaped by these two bodies. "We were the experts ... there was no question in ... our minds," said Rexford Moon. When Lyndon Johnson wanted advice regarding higher education, he called on Moon or John Munro (Moon, 1979). Others have agreed that the College Board and ACE dominated the higher education scene in the early 1960s. Ed Sanders, of the College Board, recalled working closely with John (Jack) Morse of ACE during this period (Sanders, 1982).

Yet more influential than the higher education community itself was the prevailing spirit of the early 1960s. During the Kennedy Administration longstanding concerns in Congress regarding both the expansion of the federal role in higher education and the thorny issues concerning separation of church and state continued to block increased federal student aid programs. These concerns, which had been temporarily suspended in the defense "emergency" of 1958, were put aside again after Kennedy’s assassination and the landslide election of Lyndon Johnson in 1964. Johnson swept into office with him a liberal congressional majority the likes of which had not been seen since the New Deal experienced electoral setbacks in 1938; with this new majority it became possible once again to enact sweeping new social policies designed to benefit those excluded from the mainstream in America (Moynihan, 1986).

In this new political climate the old reservations regarding proper federal government roles gave way to a growing national commitment to the ideology of equal opportunity. This ideology was reflected in the War on Poverty and Great Society domestic initiatives of the Johnson Administration. The concern with poverty in the midst of plenty produced programs such as Medicare; concerns over equality were expressed in passage of civil rights, voting rights, and housing legislation. In education, as in other areas, this growing commitment overcame the earlier reservations with enactment of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965. Less visible, but of genuine significance, was the Higher Education Act of 1965, which focused on student aid and which attained bipartisan support in the Congress (Gladieux and Wolanin, 1976, pp. 3-18). This Act broadened the existing NDSL program and moved the College Work-Study (CWS) program, which had begun the previous year in the Office of Economic Opportunity, to the Office of Education. In addition, the new Act established a federal grant program titled Educational Opportunity Grants (EOG). These three programs — NDSL, CWS, and EOG — were based on campus for administration in accordance with legislated eligibility requirements. An added program, the Guaranteed Student Loan (GSL), was also devised as a financing mechanism for those students unable to secure NDSL funds, either due to ineligibility or to insufficient allocations to the campus of the student’s choice (G. Miller, 1975).

With the establishment of these new and substantial programs of student assistance by the federal government, the role of the campus financial aid administrator was magnified. This accelerated the trend among institutions to designate an individual responsible for administering student aid. The resulting growth of this administrative specialty had significant consequences on the existing student aid community. While numerous administrators of financial aid worked at institutions holding membership in CSS, increasingly they expressed reservations about the capability of that group to serve the individual needs of aid professionals. Such sentiments had arisen prior to the1965 legislation. Ronald Brown, an aid administrator instrumental in early activities of the community, has recalled that many aid administrators indicated discomfort with the image of the College Board "as a snob, Eastern seaboard organization." More practical concerns, too, were present; professional organizations governed by aid administrators themselves might lead to increased campus recognition of the importance of this newly emerging administrative area (Brown, 1979).

Neither was ACPA membership viewed by many as entirely satisfactory. While Commission V of ACPA functioned "as a financial aid organization within a broader base" of student personnel and led to political involvement in providing Congressional testimony (Huff, 1979) a number of aid administrators began calling for a different pattern of organization — a pattern which recognized financial aid as the primary business of an association.

This concern was partially addressed by regional groups of aid administrators in the early 1960s. Building on a base established in Big Ten and Big Eight football conferences, aid administrators in the Midwest began meeting on an informal basis in the 1950s. Administrators from other states sometimes joined in these meetings, and among topics discussed were the need for regional and national organizations of aid administrators. Gradually a consensus developed that a formal regional association could have benefit; yet there were serious reservations about the need for a national group. Essentially these concerns related to the ready availability of ACE, CSS, and other organizations which could represent institutions of higher education. Action was thus deferred on establishing a national body, or even on suggesting a confederation of regional associations.

In October, 1962, however, a group of nearly 100 aid administrators met at Purdue University, for a discussion of associational needs. At the close of this session the Midwest Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (MASFAA) was formally organized. This pioneer group was followed by the formation of the Southwestern Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (SWASFAA) in November, 1962, the Southern Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (SASFAA) in February, 1963, and the Eastern Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (EASFAA) in October, 1966. Aid administrators in the Rocky Mountain and Western regions had not by the end of 1966 organized formally. Some of them were meeting together, however — generally under the auspices of CSS (Sample, 1986).

With regional groupings in place a number of aid administrators again began to call for a national organization. Others still found reasons to object. Rex Moon, as Director of the College Scholarship Service, could see little rationale for aid administrators leaving the well-financed operation of CSS in order to start their own poor, struggling one; he had little sympathy for the concerns of aid administrators such as Allan Purdy, George Risty, and Carroll Parish that an institutional organization such as CSS could not represent those aid administrators employed by non-member institutions (Moon, 1979). Others, such as Robert Huff, felt that CSS was sufficient for the needs of aid administrators and opposed a proliferation of organizations (Huff, 1979). It was this sentiment which prohibited Westerners from forming even a regional association separate from CSS.

Yet by late 1966 those with reservations expressed a minority viewpoint within the aid community. No individual vocalized the necessity for national structure more forcefully than did Allan Purdy, who in October, 1966, called together representatives of the existing regions along with aid administrators from the east and the west. This group, which met during a CSS conference at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, voted to form the "National Student Financial Aid Council" (NSFAC). Much of the motivation behind the organizational session of this group of aid administrators — which had been meeting earlier on a "semi-regular basis" — was to develop a formal body which could represent the political interests of student aid at the national level in a timely and forceful manner. The regional groups could identify concerns, but without national coordination there was no effective voice for their views. CSS might have represented the aid administrators in this regard, but many found that organization, as a part of the College Board, too cautious in its approach to political issues (Purdy, 1979). The NSFAC created in 1966, then, was a device to coordinate and give voice to regional points of view. It was not, however, a creation of the regional associations themselves. Indeed, two of the regions had not yet formed their own organizations; those which were functional sent no official representatives to the organizational meeting. Rather, the aid administrators who gathered at the Waldorf were self-appointed volunteers. It remained for them to establish a structure which would appeal to all aid administrators in the nation.

The very name chosen for the new national organization reflected the magnitude of this task. There existed considerable diversity of opinion among members of the aid community regarding the necessity of having a national organization at all. The name "Council" rather than "Association" was selected in deference to the view that a proliferation of professional associations was to be avoided. Bob Huff, along with other Westerners, continued to believe that CSS could serve effectively as the professional development vehicle for the aid administrator; it was only after the advent of competitive financial aid services by the American College Testing Program (ACT) that Huff and his colleagues acquiesced in the formation of the Western Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (WASFAA) in January, 1969, following the establishment of the Rocky Mountain Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (RMASFAA) in October, 1968. (Purdy et al., 1975, pp. 4-5; Sample, 1986). In its first three years of existence, then NSFAC represented "sort of a rag-tail six regional associational membership" (Wooten, 1979), operating in the main as a national coordinator of and spokesperson for regional members.

At the initial meeting in October, 1966, the group formed the Council and elected its first set of officers — Purdy of Missouri as Chairman, L. W. Davis of Tuskegee Institute as Vice-Chairman, and John Jones of Arkansas A&M as Secretary-Treasurer. They also discussed professional placement activities, which had been a function under ACPA Commission V, and asked that Purdy advise "various committee heads in Washington" of the founding of the Council. Having accomplished this, the group adjourned (National Council Minutes, October 24, 1966).

In February, 1967, the Council met again, and this time the agenda included items which would mark the structure of the organization’s future. James Moore, from the United States Office of Education (USOE), attended the meeting to provide information regarding Washington developments relating to financial aid. This set two important precedents: first, the council would devote significant portions of its deliberations to development of a knowledge base regarding federal initiatives; second, "liaison representatives" from USOE, ACE, CSS, ACT, and other members of the higher education establishment would be invited to attend all Council sessions (National Council Minutes, February 12-13, 1967).

At this same meeting, Council instructed the officers to form a committee to develop a constitution and by-laws; this effort was approached cautiously and took nearly three years to complete. During that time the Council continued to use the structure established at its initial meeting. Allan Purdy, whose personal efforts had led in large measure to the formation of NSFAC, was elected Chairman again in 1967 and 1968 (terms ran from October to October); the work of Council during these years bore the mark of his legislative acumen and devotion to student aid issues. In October, 1969, however, Purdy announced that he would not accept another term as "President," as the office was to be called in the new constitution then pending regional ratification. [Although he never bore the title of President during his terms of service, Purdy was accorded recognition, upon ratification of the constitution, as the organization’s first President.] Kenneth Wooten of Mississippi was elected to serve as the second President of the organization, and Carroll Parish of California was chosen President-Elect, to succeed Wooten in 1970-71. Another new office, that of Vice-President, was filled by Grant Curtis of Massachusetts (National Council Minutes, October 25, 1969).

Upon leaving office Purdy reiterated his often expressed concern that the Council continually seek ways to broaden its base — calling for increased representation among women, minorities, and aid administrators from two-year colleges (National Council Minutes, October 25, 1969). Even at its initial meeting Purdy had stressed awareness that in order to become an effective force in the higher education community and before Congress, NSFAC would have to be broadly representative of all aid administrators. He had made certain that the initial meeting had been attended by aid administrators from all six regions of the nation, including those which had no formal organization themselves, and that a balance was achieved regarding race as well as institutional sector and size. Purdy would later remember with pride that he never called a meeting without representation by all regions, nor without representation by blacks and women. This balance was a matter of fairness, of course, but Purdy was also aware of its practical importance: in going to Congress with a united viewpoint, based on wide representation, Purdy could speak with a stronger voice for NSFAC. "If we truly represented," he remembered, "then the different factions had to be heard" (Purdy, 1979).

The work of Council under Purdy was conducted through a number of committees, usually appointed for brief durations in regard to a specific situation. Under Ken Wooten this use of committees was increased. One on-going committee, however, stood out from the rest: Allan Purdy would coordinate a legislative advisory group of regional representatives as Chairman of the State-Federal Relations committee. This activity would clearly continue to be the primary external focus of the organization. Two additional standing committees related to federal relations were also appointed: one dealing with current concerns and the other to focus on future possibilities. A new committee was formed to coordinate professional development activities, pointing to an increased future role in training, placement, and consulting. Among the committees appointed four were devoted exclusively to internal affairs: communications (publications), constitution and by-laws revision, membership representation, and "means of funding NSFAC activities." Clearly the Council still had need to focus on its own development (National Council Minutes, October 26, 1969). One aspect of that development, at least, had jelled by late 1969; the pending constitution and by-laws achieved ratification by all six regions. Under this constitution the organization received a new name, the "National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators" (NASFAA), retaining a "National Council" as its governing body (Purdy et al., 1975, p. 6).

With NASFAA officially in existence, the National Council began during 1969-70 to explore mechanisms for strengthening its role as representative of the student aid community. In May, 1969, Council had already determined to conduct its own regular meetings in the future rather than "piggybacking" on scheduled conferences of CSS or other organizations. Further, the new constitution made formal the official representation of regional associations on Council: each region was entitled to select three of its members to serve at the national level. The President-Elect was to be chosen by the resulting Council, from among its own members. With these structural decisions made, the Council could turn to ways of attracting the notice of practicing financial aid administrators. Among the possibilities proposed were the publication of a national newsletter and a journal, the establishment of a central office for the Association, and the holding of a national conference (National Council Minutes, 1970).

Constantly limiting all such ventures was the dismal financial situation of NSFAC/NASFAA. While Rex Moon may have underestimated the determination of aid administrators to become directly involved in political discussion, he had accurately gauged the financial hardship their new organization would undergo. At the initial 1966 meeting the Council had requested contributions of $50 per region. While all regions complied with the request, the total income thus derived was meager. By October, 1967, the Treasurer reported a bank account balance of only $87.45 and stated the obvious: there "will be a need for additional funds" (National Council Minutes, October 22, 1967). The National Student Financial Aid Council survived during this time through "pinching off" institutional travel budgets and through the personal financial sacrifices of its members (Franklin, 1983).

Indeed, funds were in such short supply that it was October, 1969, before the National Council recorded its first serious discussion of a working budget. By that time dues of $5.00 per regional member were being assessed by NASFAA, meaning a possible operating budget for the year of nearly $10,000 (Sample, 1981, p. 2). While this income seemed large compared with that generated by the prior system, it was still scarcely sufficient to cover the costs of travel, supplies, and operating expenses; much less did it seem to allow for publication of the desired newsletter in a reasonable quality or frequency. By March, 1970, the Treasurer, citing a financial crisis, called on the officers and legislative liaison Purdy to refrain from making additional travel commitments. Even so, council was reluctant to ask for more dues from NASFAA members; Edson Sample of Indiana, deferring to the desires of several other Council members to consult their respective regions prior to endorsing any increase, was forced to withdraw a motion to raise the dues assessment to $10 per regional member (National Council Minutes, March 16, 1970).

Such consultations slowed the process of obtaining additional funding; it was August of the same year before council voted to adopt the increase Sample had earlier recommended. Since July 1 had been used by NASFAA as the date governing regional payment of dues per member, the opportunity to effect the increase during 1970 was lost, and the Association had to be content with expecting the additional revenues beginning July 1, 1971. Even then there was concern regarding potential regional opposition, and President-Elect Grant Curtis volunteered to prepare a chart showing possible national activities at the present and proposed dues levels. The resulting table clearly depicted the organization’s priority on legislative matters as well as a commitment to some strengthening of its ability to communicate with members; its expanded services under the enlarged budget were designed to provide the appropriate organizational systems for the attainment of its goals. It maintained legislative activities at $7,500 per year under revenues of either $10,000 or $20,000; it provided for a central office and newsletters, at drastically different levels of support, under each budget. Added under the proposed increase, in addition to expanded roles for the central office and newsletter, were funding levels for publication of a journal, placement service activities, a recognition award, a brochure depicting NASFAA, and a contingencies fund (Sample, 1981, pp. 3-4).

Even this increase, it was clear to many, would be insufficient to conduct the affairs of NASFAA as National Council wished. Consequently the Council began to investigate alternative sources of revenue. Plans were made to request a Sloan Foundation grant of $40,000 over a three-year period; unfortunately these plans had to be canceled since NASFAA lacked tax-exempt status. President Parish therefore moved the Association into an investigation of incorporation, reporting to Council in September, 1971 that it might be financially beneficial to establish two separate and distinct corporations (Sample, 1981, pp. 4-5). Others elaborated on this idea; Ken Wooten circulated a paper in the fall of 1971 which brought to the attention of National Council the need to investigate structural changes. Wooten called for the establishment of a social welfare (mutual-benefit), dues-based corporation to be known as the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. He further suggested the creation of a second corporation, made up of those institutions of higher education whose aid administrators were on its Board, organized for "educational purposes" and soliciting income from "foundations, government, business, or individuals for the purpose of educational research, publication of professional journals, preparation of educational training materials, workshops, seminars, and similar non-political endeavors" (Wooten 1971, pp. 3-6). As 1971 ended, then, NASFAA was earnestly considering means of providing itself with a structure which would lead to goal attainment.

These goals, from the 1966 organizational meeting on, had been largely understood by the membership of Council. By creating their own "Council" they had attained the desired outlet for individual activity within an organization totally devoted to their area of expertise; by forming a new group, separate from CSS, they had expanded their opportunities for involvement in the political process. These two motives which led to the founding of NSFAC became the initial goals of the organization.

The outlet for involvement in the political process particularly intrigued a number of influential members. Ken Wooten, for example, has recalled that it was the desire to have a mechanism of translating regional concerns into national activity which led him to attend the first Council meeting. Everything else was secondary to the opportunity to be heard by policymakers (Wooten, 1979). Even the slogan chosen for the stationery printed during the first year of NSFAC’s existence revealed the underlying organizational goal: "Representing Student Financial Aid Administrators in Higher Education" (National Council Minutes, February 12-13, 1967). Other goals came later, but these remained secondary to legislative advocacy during the first years of NSFAC/NASFAA’s existence. Allan Purdy was instrumental in those years in bringing the name of the new organization to the attention of Congressional and USOE staff; just as his interest in legislative matters had given impetus to the founding of NSFAC, so did his personal involvement in this area translate into organizational strategies. Under his leadership the vast bulk of Council work and resources, other than that devoted to internal structure, was related to legislative concerns. This emphasis continued under President Wooten; the membership brochure printed for the 1969-70 year explained that NASFAA had expended "most of its energies to date ... representing the profession in Washington." Wooten also advocated the practice of organizational liaison, calling upon NASFAA to work on building effective relationships with other higher education associations and government agencies, to the purpose of attaining greater recognition of the importance both of student aid and of those who administer it (Sample, 1986, p. 1.1.1). Carroll Parish, in 1970-71, gave increased attention to the goal of training and professional development, supporting projects such as the "training the trainers" of aid administrators, the holding of a national "Leadership Conference," and the publication of a journal. Even with this added emphasis on the goal of professional development, Parish later stated, during his term of office NASFAA continued to devote so much time and effort to legislative matters that services to members suffered (Parish, 1979).

Under the leadership of Grant Curtis the goals of the past years were restated, together, as a set of objectives to which the Association aspired. Three broad areas of associational endeavors existed, declared Curtis: first, the establishment of effective liaison with other educational organizations and aid agencies; second, the devotion of resources to the advancement of the profession through training and development; and third, the active involvement of the Association in legislative advocacy (Sample, 1986, p. 1.3.1-1.3.3). While each of these goals had origins in the beginnings of NASFAA, Curtis had articulated them clearly and systematically for the first time.

Using his expression of the goals in 1971, it is possible to see how NSFAC/NASFAA strategies had unfolded during the preceding five years. Liaison, for instance, was discussed at the first Council meeting when Purdy was asked to inform various agency heads in Washington of the founding of NSFAC. It continued as representatives of diverse groups of government and higher education organizations were invited to participate in subsequent National Council meetings. Among the early visitors to Council meetings were James Moore of USOE and Jack Morse of ACE, as well as representatives of CSS and ACT. President Parish in 1970, continuing the work of President Wooten, established an active committee devoted to organizational liaison. Underlying all this effort was a keen awareness of the need to be regarded by the entire higher education community — and especially by its student aid component — as a legitimate organization entitled to speak for the interests of student aid programs and administrators. Such recognition, the early leaders of NSFAC and NASFAA instinctively understood, would lead to greater influence on aid issues; it would lead to NASFAA "membership" in the higher education "subgovernment" itself.

Professional development, too, was an area of interest to NSFAC from its earliest stages; yet before the emergence of ACT as a rival service to CSS there was little reason to offer formal training opportunities. Once the competition between the two service agencies intensified, however, NSFAC had to begin to give serious consideration to an impartial training effort. Further, since USOE lacked the staff to conduct extensive training activities, the federal authorities sought to use "a cadre of contributors" from the field; training thus became a natural area of NSFAC discussion (Muirhead, 1980). Still, by 1969 the national organization had little record of direct involvement in professional development. Training workshops and consulting services for inexperienced aid administrators essentially remained a state and regional responsibility, while placement service operations were still in the hands of ACPA’s Commission V. NASFAA did continue to express its interest in professional development through the use of committees designed to maintain communication with regions and with Commission V regarding their activities (National Council Minutes, October 26, 1969 and October 24, 1970).

Yet it was not until Carroll Parish announced, on September 1, 1971, the receipt of a $15,000 grant from USOE for the conducting of three national training workshops, that NASFAA made direct involvement in training an official activity. In these sessions NASFAA would train small groups of experienced aid administrators so that they might serve, in turn, as trainers of less experienced colleagues at state workshops throughout the nation (National Council Minutes, September 1, 1971). While few recognized the significance of this new role at the time, these training workshops launched a significant aspect of the reputation of NASFAA, a reputation for expertise in training which was to grow during the next several years (Muirhead, 1980).

Another area of professional development which began during the same year was publication in May of the first issue of the Journal of Student Financial Aid. The Journal, which had been desired for several years and postponed because of a lack of funds, had evolved from a proposal made to Carroll Parish and Bob Huff by Edson Sample at a luncheon in 1969 (Sample, 1981). Once sufficient funding was in hand the Journal began sporadic publication under Huff’s editorship. Only two issues could be afforded during 1971; still, this new publication served to inform NASFAA members concerning broad issues affecting student financial aid, and it also served the profession as an outlet for research in the field.

During its first five years, then, NSFAC/NASFAA little recognized the role professional development activities — especially training — might play in enhancing its reputation. In part this lack of awareness was related to the traditional role of states and regions in training activities and to the corresponding reluctance of the national organization to usurp a local function. In larger measure, however, it appeared to result from the heavy involvement of NASFAA with legislative advocacy, an involvement so intense that it greatly limited the resources available for other activities. Since liaison with other organizations was recognized as integral to legislative success, NASFAA found time to interact with several other groups, both to acquire knowledge and to establish contacts. Professional development, prior to 1971, had less obvious possibilities for enhancing legislative outcomes.

Influencing these outcomes was the primary stated goal of NASFAA from the beginning; the founding aid administrators desired nothing less for themselves than full membership in the "subgovernment" involved in the higher education policy arena. This subgovernment — a network of close, longstanding connections among members and staffs of various congressional subcommittees, executive agencies, interest groups, and program clientele — included those who made policy decisions regarding student aid (Gladieux and Wolanin, 1976).

In 1965 financial aid administrators had little influence in the policy arena. William F. Gaul, then Counsel to the U. S. House Subcommittee on Postsecondary Education, chaired by Edith Green of Oregon, recalled vividly the enactment of the 1965 Higher Education Act. It was an exciting time for Gaul, a chance to enact the principles of the Great Society into higher education policy. Among the participants in this historic process were ACE’s Jack Morse, CSS’s Rex Moon, representatives of bankers’ organizations, and the staffs of the Subcommittee and the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Only about five aid administrators actually offered testimony, Gaul stated, and these were all local, Washington-area college employees. "We were not that familiar with the people in the field who were the decision-makers and leaders in ... student aid" (Gaul, 1980).

This lack of Congressional familiarity with aid administrators was a condition Allan Purdy and his colleagues sought to remedy. Several of these leaders of the aid community had appeared in Washington before; Purdy, for example, had served as a chairman of ACPA Commission V and in that capacity had offered testimony before Congress (Parish, 1979). Yet it was mainly after passage of the 1965 Act that Purdy and the others became well-known to Congressional staffers. Their practice of "working the Hill," as Purdy described it, developed in large part from the close relationship of the NSFAC leaders with Jim Moore at USOE. During the Johnson Administration the relationships between the staffs at USOE and Congress were cordial; Moore’s friendship with Purdy and other NSFAC members provided aid administrators with excellent introductions to policymakers. After 1966 Edith Green began increasingly to call upon aid administrators, especially Allan Purdy, for advice on student aid issues (Purdy, 1979, and Parish, 1979).

The attraction for Green and others was the technical expertise of several individuals within NSFAC rather than the prestige of the organization itself. This desire on the part of Congressional leaders for accurate technical information accelerated after the January, 1969, inauguration of Richard Nixon as President of the United States. With the advent of the Nixon Administration the Congress found itself heavily involved in technical issues they had previously entrusted to USOE. In the early days after passage of the 1965 Act, Bill Gaul remembered, congressional staffers seeking to refine the aid programs simply called Jim Moore at USOE, asking "is this good or bad?" There had been little perception on Capitol Hill of a need to seek advice outside of Washington. However, the generalized distrust of the Executive Branch stemming from the foreign policy of the latter years of the Johnson had had its effect on Congressional relations with USOE staff; under Nixon, with many of the old Johnson contacts gone "no one trusted them [USOE staff] to do anything." Every Office of Education regulation became the subject of review (Gaul, 1980).

NASFAA saw an opportunity in the growing atmosphere of distrust between the legislative and executive branches of government; as technical experts on the operation of the existing aid programs the administrators were asked to present testimony before various Congressional committees. The distrust between branches of government did not extend to diminished relationships between NASFAA and Jim Moore, however. In March, 1968, the day before he was to present testimony before Green’s subcommittee, Purdy held a meeting of National Council in a USOE conference room in an effort to plan last minute details of his statement. Jim Moore was present during this strategy session, as was Jack Morse of ACE. The partnership among Congress, USOE. and the higher education may have slipped a bit during the final of Lyndon Johnson’s term of office, but it had not yet fallen apart (National Council Minutes, March 6, 1967).

In addition to soliciting the advice of Council and other interested parties, Purdy understood the uses of additional, practical, political measures. One of his favorite strategies was to identify and mobilize working financial aid administrators from the home districts of Congressional representative This skillful use of people "from the field" helped lend credibility to NSFAC opinions as well as letting Representatives understand that the people back home were informed about aid issues (Gaul, 1980).

The strategic initiative which most benefited NSFAC/NASFAA legislative activities during its early years was not the idea of the aid administrators themselves. Rather, it came from Bill Gaul of the House Subcommittee staff. The emphasis of all NASFAA positions, Gaul suggested, must always be on the needs of students rather than those of institutions. In that way NASFAA could win the trust of policymakers weary of expressions of self-interest from countless lobby groups in Washington. This advice was not only followed but also quickly internalized by NASFAA members as a central value; it has remained the focus of NASFAA policy ever since. This emphasis on students as the focal point of NASFAA policy has been a key factor in the ability of the representatives of a diverse group of institutions to remain united in the organization (Parish, 1979).

The goals of NASFAA, then, were heavily weighted toward legislative ends. Part of their strategy, particularly after President Nixon took office, was to counteract Administration proposals (Wooten, 1979). Yet NASFAA in its early years was more than a watchdog and nay-sayer; it saw itself as "a major spokesman for financial aid interests to Congress and the Administration" (Membership Brochure, 1969-70) and thus regarded its role as more progressive than reactive. By May, 1971, Allan Purdy could point with pleasure to the inclusion of 16 out of 20 NASFAA recommendations in a higher education Bill being introduced by Green. The goal of legislative involvement seemed to have been met (National Council Minutes, May 15, 1971).

In part this was a result of the strategies employed, especially the idea of becoming recognized as the technical experts on aid issues. The systems used to effect this strategic initiative were quite simple: Purdy and a few other NSFAC leaders, in "working the Hill," cultivated personal friendships with key decision makers such as Jim Moore, Bill Gaul, Jack Morse, and Ed Sanders, the Director of the new College Board Washington Office. The active group in this process, in the early years, was rather small — Purdy, Wooten, Parish, Curtis, and Sample were the main figures involved in this system of personal contact; Purdy was by far the most active of the group. Of particular importance to the development of NASFAA was the trusting relationship which developed over the years between Allan Purdy and Edith Green (Gaul, 1980).

The NASFAA legislative advocates remained ever careful of their role as providing information rather than lobbying, as being a "cadre of experts" rather than a set of influence peddlers (Curtis, 1979; Rowe, 1980). While they welcomed the political advice of men like Gaul, Moore, Morse, and Sanders, they also relied on the technical expertise of aid administrators throughout the country through the use of a telephone network. This system enabled the small group to enlarge their base of knowledge, giving credence to their claim of representing the interests of aid administrators from all regions and sectors. It also enabled them to mobilize their colleagues across the nation during critical periods. Still, it was the small group which ultimately made the decisions on how to proceed. Throughout the period the bulk of NSFAC/NASFAA resources were devoted to the expenses of the group of advocates who spent so much of their time in Washington.

Their personal "making the rounds" in Washington did not always seem sufficient to the task, however. Carroll Parish, who as President-Elect in 1969 anticipated good relations with the Nixon Administration based upon his California connections with the Secretary of HEW, Robert Finch, soon found that cordial personal relationships were not adequate to influence the new administration (Sample, 1986, p. 1.2.3). More systematic effort was now required than even frequent personal visits to the nation’s capital could provide. By early 1971 NASFAA had begun to explore opportunities to establish a permanent representative in the Washington area. Before taking action on its own the Executive Committee chose to consult both Jack Morse at ACE and Ed Sanders of the College Board for advice (Executive Committee Minutes, February 14, 1971). Morse was not encouraging; he saw no real need for another higher education association to have a Washington office; he even rejected an informal request by Purdy and Sample to establish a "financial aid desk" at ACE. Sanders was planning to retire from his service to the College Board. NASFAA representatives unofficially discussed with him the possibility of his staying on in Washington on a part-time basis on behalf of the aid administrators. However, since he was planning to return to California he declined (Sample [unpublished interview]).

The approaching departure of Sanders, a close ally of NASFAA, created additional interest among the aid administrators in establishing a permanent representative of their own in the capital. Carroll Parish formally appointed a committee to investigate the possibilities of such a move in late 1971 (National Council Minutes, September 1, 1971).

In its legislative advocacy activities, then, NASFAA had come to realize that it needed to expand its system of personal contacts into a more formal mechanism. The successes of the personal contacts of a small group of leaders had been important to the Association. However, the system had actually been based more upon the reputations of the individuals involved than on any recognition of organizational expertise. As late as 1971 the legislative advocacy operations of NASFAA depended more heavily on the actions of a small group of influential people than on the influence of the organization these people represented.

Systems for liaison with other higher education organizations were similarly based around personal connections. The College Board and ACE had been the principal players in the policy arena among the higher education establishment; it was not coincidental that Ed Sanders and Jack Morse were frequently invited to participate in Council meetings. Before NSFAC/NASFAA achieved any organizational influence of its own it nevertheless had opportunities to express its views directly to these men who did have access to the corridors of power. This not only gave NASFAA a "back door" mechanism for presenting views to policymakers (Curtis, 1979), it also offered the NASFAA leaders the chance of gaining a future voice in their own right by giving them the opportunity to become involved directly in the "subgovernment" of decision makers. Liaison activity was vital to NASFAA, and it was made a formal part of associational activity as early as 1969, when NASFAA joined the Council of Student Personnel Administrators (COSPA), a coordinating body for the efforts of higher education associations (National Council Minutes, June 26, 1969). During the presidency of Ken Wooten the concept of linkage became a written organizational goal, but NASFAA still depended most heavily on the personal relationships between its leaders and those of other organizations.

Professional development, as an organizational focus, was not given the emphasis of the other organizational goals; nevertheless, NSFAC/NASFAA during its early years did develop systems designed to foster communications with its membership. While placement activities and training were largely left to others during the early stages of organizational life, the realization of the desirability of widespread representation among aid administrators across the nation and of mobilizing this larger group from campuses in the field led the Association to search for a mechanism for mass communication with its members. Grant Curtis suggested as early as 1967 that a national newsletter be mailed to all members of regional financial aid associations, but limited funds prohibited any immediate action on his idea (National Council Minutes, October 22, 1967). In March, 1969, Edson Sample led the Council to call for some system of sending periodic reports to the membership (National Council Minutes, March 31, 1969). By October of that same year Council discussed the urgent need for improved communication within the financial aid community. Council expressed the hope that a newsletter — perhaps "not too sophisticated at first," but issued at "frequent intervals" — could be made a priority for NASFAA. On October 25, 1969, President Wooten appointed Sample chairman of a committee to investigate the possibilities (National Council Minutes, October 25, 1969). Sample wasted no time; he had come to Council prepared to work hard for this idea. The next day, as Chairman of the new committee, he called upon Council to plan for an eight-to-twelve page newsletter to be published every two months and mailed "to Congress, to regional and national 0.E. staff members, to dues paying financial aid officers in regional associations, and to all schools on the HEW institutional mailing list" (National Council Minutes, October 26, 1969).

Perhaps Sample’s proposal was a bit ambitious for such a financially struggling organization, but Council accepted his report and called for the establishment of a permanent newsletter committee, funded at $2,000 of an $8,000 total organizational budget. By March of the following year Sample could report to the Council that "I have brought my report in the person of Mrs. Nancy Eichsteadt of the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, who has agreed to serve as editor of the newsletter." Eichsteadt received clarification on several items regarding this new project: based on the available funds she planned three issues of eight pages each; these were to be mailed to "members and nonmembers" in the aid community but not directly to Congress, USOE, or other policymakers (National Council Minutes, March 16, 1970).

The first issue of the NASFAA Newsletter was published in June. Its stated purpose was the development of the profession through communication between Council and membership; its contents included lengthy articles on new aid amendments endorsed by NASFAA and on the Nixon Administration’s proposals regarding student aid. The intent, clearly, was to enlighten the membership on the technical aspects of Council positions. The newsletter was only six pages long rather than the hoped-for eight; and number 1 was the only issue of 1970. Still, the process of systematic communication with the membership had begun; three additional issues would follow in 1971; seven in 1972 (Sample, 1986, p. 12.2.1).

Nor was the Newsletter the only system created for professional development activities in 1970. The Journal was well into the final developmental stages in that year, as were plans for a national meeting, a placement service run exclusively by NASFAA, and appropriate professional recognition awards for leaders in the student aid field (National Council Minutes, August 19-21, 1970). Further, desiring greater coordination of the burgeoning activities of the national association, its leaders arranged in October, 1970, for a part-time, volunteer-run, "central office" to be established on the campus of Purdue University. The person in charge of that office, Richard Tombaugh of Purdue, planned to serve primarily as a facilitator of mailings and other communication with members and of associational activities in professional development (Tombaugh to Council, February 14, 1971).

By the beginning of the 1970-71 associational year, then, systems for professional development, like those for legislative advocacy and liaison with other educational organizations, were becoming more formally organized. Yet at best the status of all such systems was transitional from the personal connections of the early days toward greater organization. In many ways this transition was demonstrated by the way NASFAA had to handle the "training the trainers" grant from USOE. Since NASFAA was not a tax exempt organization the grant technically had to be accepted by some other group; Stanford’s Huff brought his institution to the rescue. NASFAA had the expertise and the willingness to do the job it was being asked to do; it simply lacked the formal mechanism which would enable it to carry it out (National Council Minutes, October 24, 1970).

The management style of NSFAC/NASFAA during its early years reflected its system of organization around personal contacts. While their choosing the name "Council" may have implied a desire by some to avoid the creation of yet another professional association among aid administrators, the group which met at the Waldorf in October, 1966, agreed that it wanted to have a voice in development and implementation of federal policies. In attempting to find this voice they would use a variety of approaches, all united behind an informal, personal style of management.

That style predominated the organizational meeting itself, which after all was a gathering of a self-appointed "club" of aid administrators who happened to be attending a conference sponsored by another group. From the beginning, however, the organizers were aware of the need to move away from the clublike atmosphere this self-selection promoted, and the new Council expressed its interest in being open to a variety of points of view during its first meeting (Huff, 1979; Purdy, 1979). Movement from a club to a wider representation would characterize the efforts of NSFAC/NASFAA for the next five years.

It was not that anyone, from any sector within higher education, was specifically excluded or discouraged from participation in early NSFAC activities; rather, the group which emerged as active generally came from those institutions which could offer them the necessary support, in time and resources, for associational activities. In practice this tended to result in an emphasis on legislative matters by a small group of aid administrators. These worked on a voluntary, part-time basis, and there were so few who could afford the time and money required that Jim Moore recalled "it got pretty incestuous around here" as Purdy, Sample, and a few others worked with USOE on ideas for policies (Moore, 1980).

The ideas thus developed were carried to Congress by these same individuals. NASFAA members believed at the time that they were having a genuine impact on legislation, despite the fact that they were "rather young.... We were running around the halls of Congress talking to a few people ... [then] they started contacting us.... We depended on the College Board for a lot of technical assistance ... typewriters, etc." (Wooten, 1979). Edson Sample later conceded, however, that "our reputation in those days far exceeded our capacity to support the organization ... we made our name in Washington.... Little did they know we were living hand-to-mouth and could hardly pay our bills" (Sample, 1981). The small group participating on behalf of NSFAC/NASFAA, however, attempted to overcome financial limitations with a great deal of "careful, low-key, but persistent work." Sometimes, though, other limitations, such as the lack of experience of these aid administrators, also showed. "We really pussyfooted around Washington and tried to conform to local mores," recalled one of the group.

Some of their inexperience was substantive, and a number of Washington insiders helped the aid administrators learn the mores Curtis described. At other times less significant issues demonstrated how much NSFAC had to learn. For instance, Grant Curtis had his elephant tie pin rather unceremoniously removed by Purdy just prior to entering the offices of Democratic partisan Edith Green (Curtis, 1979). Obviously some pragmatic political lessons were required. Among these lessons were some of a more serious nature, including one missed by the entire higher education community. In order to achieve real results in Washington more than an issue-orientation was necessary. Simply asserting that higher education has value, or that student financial aid was needed, would not produce desired funding. The issues had to be stated, of course, but more important was an attention to the mobilization of political resources — trustees and other key influential persons at the local level who could influence the actions of policymakers. The benefits of this "working into a relationship" with Congress were seen only dimly by the higher education community in the late 1960s and early 1970s (Cable, 1980). NSFAC/NASFAA perhaps recognized the benefits more than most; Purdy had worked to mobilize "the field" of aid administrators in key congressional districts. Later experience would teach NASFAA and the entire higher education community that such mobilization efforts had to be expanded to include not only their own membership but also influential persons who could support their point of view.

Experience had already begun to teach that greater coordination of effort was required. The organization which had centered its initial activities around the abilities of its founding President began, by the end of the 1960s, to realize the requirement for a consistent, long-term center of operations. Thus NASFAA arranged in 1970 to have Dick Tombaugh of Purdue University direct the operations of a "central office" (Sample, 1981). Tombaugh at the time was best known to Sample and others inside the state of Indiana, but he had also established a good rapport with a number of NASFAA leaders during 1969-70. He had spent that year on a leave of absence from Purdue, conducting research at USOE. During that period in Washington he had served NASFAA as an advisor regarding USOE activities, briefing Purdy, Sample, and the others on "inside" information whenever they came to Washington (Tombaugh, 1982).

Upon his return to Purdue, then, Tombaugh must have seemed a natural choice to coordinate additional activities of the Association. He undertook his duties, without salary, with a number of mechanical concerns before him, including postal regulations, accumulation of a complete mailing address file, and financing procedures. Additionally, as he indicated to Council, "I need a title" (Tombaugh to National Council, November 22, 1970). This request was rapidly granted; Tombaugh was officially designated "Director of the Central Office" and assigned specific duties, involving coordination of all associational mailings, responding to "inquiries regarding national financial aid professional activities," and serving as a "Director of Placement" (Newsletter, January, 1971). Other problems were not so rapidly solved, however, and in the fifth month of operation of the central office Tombaugh admitted that "progress has not been as rapid as I hoped" (Tombaugh to National Council, February 14, 1971).

Another factor was perhaps even more limiting than the money problem. While Tombaugh was able to perform his newly assigned duties from his desk at Purdue, the Association missed his presence inside Washington. Ken Wooten, in the same paper in which he proposed the restructuring of NASFAA into two corporations, also questioned the "indirect approach" the Association employed. "We wait patiently ... for the periodic flares that are planted along the Potomac," he argued, and "more often than not we arrive on the scene after the fire has run its course...." Aid administrators simply needed greater visibility in Washington, Wooten believed, if they were to become valued participants inside the higher education policy arena. He did not intend his paper to represent

Others in NASFAA agreed with Wooten, and the Association began to explore ways of bringing its central office operations to Washington. They also began to look at the problems inherent in using a volunteer, part-time staff of one in serving a national membership. Tombaugh reported that the position was "much more time-consuming than anticipated.... There is so much that could be done if I had the time." He therefore called upon Council to "pursue the establishment of a Central office staffed with a full-time" employee (Tombaugh to National Council, February 19, 1972). As 1972 began, then, NASFAA was recognizing the necessity of altering its staffing arrangements. While its staff had already evolved away from some of the old emphasis on volunteers-for-every-task toward a pattern of greater centralization of effort, in staffing, as in other areas of its organizational life, NASFAA had begun to understand that changes were coming.

Awareness of the need for changes demonstrated the increasing skills of NASFAA leadership. Effective leadership skills had been present from the beginning. The organizers of the Association in 1966 formed a knowledgeable group of practicing aid administrators, and the federal student aid effort was then so new and malleable that their practical expertise made their views valuable to policymakers. Congressional representatives, staff, and even USOE officials sometimes lacked sufficient background upon which to base decisions and thus looked for NSFAC/NASFAA advice on the practical effects of potential policy directions.

This data void among policymakers, then, gave NSFAC/NASFAA its initial opportunity for legislative influence, and as relations between Congress and first Johnson, then Nixon, worsened, the opportunity for the aid administrators widened. If there was a felt need for good, technical data, Purdy and company were only too willing to meet that need. Initially, however, the new group had to find a way to establish its credibility as the technical experts without alienating the rest of the higher education community. Purdy, with outstanding personal communications skills, achieved this goal almost immediately. As Edson Sample has recalled, Purdy "put us in good stead with the Washington groups." Understanding that "the last thing Jack Morse [of ACE] wanted ... was another association messing around" in Washington, Purdy made it his practice to telephone Morse and others upon his every arrival in the capital. In these conversations he requested both information on recent political developments and advice on how NSFAC/NASFAA could help the other organizations achieve their common goals. Purdy’s own abilities in communication were vital:

In addition to his work with other groups, Purdy also established a reputation as a "crackerjack" witness before congressional committees (Moore, 1980). In the House of Representatives, in the early days of the Nixon Administration, Edith Green felt somewhat isolated. Many of her old contacts inside USOE were gone, and she instructed Bill Gaul to develop additional human resources outside of Washington. The resulting meetings with Allan Purdy led to an increasing exchange of technical information between the two. Some career employees at USOE remained involved as well. Among them was Richard Rowe, Director of the Division of Student Financial Assistance, who shared Gaul’s feeling that the Nixon Administration consisted of too many "scoundrels" and "high-handed" appointees who were attempting to "redirect student aid" administratively in ways which defied legislative intent (Rowe, 1980).

In an atmosphere thus charged, NASFAA was able to fill a void; Purdy established a telephone network in an effort to get reliable information from the field in a timely manner. NASFAA occupied an increasingly important position in the middle of negotiations between Congress and USOE, as Moore might call Purdy for advice on a proposal, Purdy would get reaction from his telephone network, and then both Moore and congressional staff could be informed of the opinions of leading aid administrators (Moore, 1980). While an increasing reliance on the use of the telephone among a number of NASFAA members characterized the process of information gathering, it remained the personal skills of Purdy and a small group of others upon which the Association really relied. While the knowledge from the field, combined with Purdy’s exceptional presentation abilities, helped the organization to counteract some legislation it believed harmful (Wooten, 1979), NASFAA leaders also began to realize their limitations in the policy arena — limitations based upon a lack of political experience and acumen.

Accordingly, they sought the advice of a number of skillful Washington operatives during NASFAA’s formative years. Morse, Sanders, and Moore frequently were asked to attend planning sessions and Council meetings, offering advice on the current political climate and on how NASFAA might best deploy its resources within it. Bill Gaul, too, served as a "coach" on the federal arena. His relationship with Purdy, along with the increasing reliance of Edith Green on the technical advice of aid administrators, greatly enhanced the recognition within Washington of NASFAA as a legitimate group (Gaul, 1980).

In May, 1971, as a part of an enlarged effort to improve skills necessary for effective operation within the policy arena, NASFAA held a "Leadership Conference" at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington. This conference, chaired by Edson Sample, was attended by eighty financial aid administrators representing all regions and nearly all state associations. Those attending had an opportunity, for the first time in NASFAA history, to come together in a group larger than Council. The result was both unifying and enlightening for those present, and the existing network of NASFAA participants in the policy arena was thereby broadened. Among the presentations which educated them in the necessary political skills were ones by Harry Hogan (Legal Counsel for Edith Green), Peter Muirhead, Jack Morse, Ed Sanders, and Bill Gaul. Included in their presentations was practical, political advice, ranging from Morse’s descriptions of the significant congressional committees to Gaul’s counsel on letter writing as a tool for communication with Congress (Newsletter, June, 1971; Newsletter, March 31, 1972).

That NASFAA needed assistance with congressional communication was illustrated by a reception it held for lawmakers and their staffs during the Conference. Strapped for funds, the Council provided the best reception it could afford, but its best was not equal to desired standards. The affair was held in a "very small room" in a House office building, and the "very few ... [congressional representatives and staffers] who came" were treated to "the sorriest looking sandwiches" (Curtis, 1979). Still, for those who did attend, the reception provided an opportunity for new acquaintances and, perhaps, new opinions. Despite the funding limitations which caused problems with the reception, the Leadership Conference itself was proclaimed an unqualified success (Newsletter, March 31, 1972).

Part of the reason for that success was the recognition of NASFAA’s potential role in training and professional development. James Nelson of USOE spoke to the assemblage, raising publicly the possibility of a grant for "training the trainers" (Newsletter, June, 1971). Peter Muirhead and others in the Office of Education had realized that in NASFAA they had available a genuine resource, "a cadre of people out in the nation" who could train the aid community for USOE (Muirhead, 1980). Dick Rowe, Director of the Division of Student Financial Assistance within the Office of Education, had agreed with Muirhead; he later reflected that NASFAA’s emergence as a respected member of the higher education community was linked not only to its celebrated technical expertise but to its role in training the profession as well (Rowe, 1980).

By 1971, then, NASFAA was acquiring and refining the requisite skills for more effective involvement in the policy arena, but their abilities remained limited by two constraints: they continued to lack the financial resources to pay for the political and professional development functions they desired, and they seemed unable to provide a central office properly located and staffed to direct these functions. Edson Sample, always a progressive thinker regarding the potential of the Association, had effectively summarized the situation the previous summer. NASFAA, he said,

Such attempts at expanding the Association would occupy center stage for NASFAA during the next several years.

By October, 1972, as he prepared to leave the presidency of NASFAA, Grant Curtis felt optimistic about the future of the Association. "We had the groundwork done.... we were at step two.... the structures were in place — we just had to build upon them" (Curtis, 1979). Curtis was referring to two important structural modifications which had occurred during his term of office. First, NASFAA had attained tax-exempt corporate status, as a "social welfare league." This change would enable the organization to claim exemption from income and sales taxes and to obtain lower postal rates for its many mailings. Second, a new corporation, the National Institute for Financial Aid Administration (NIFAA), had been established, since under the existing Internal Revenue Service code the mere incorporation of NASFAA did not give it the necessary tax status to enable it to accept grants from either foundations or government agencies. Further, in order to attain this preferred tax status, NASFAA would have been required to change from an individual membership association to an institutional membership one and would also have been forced to curtail its legislative advocacy activities. Legal counsel therefore advised Council to approve incorporation of a second organization, which would be established with the tax authority to accept grants, and which would be responsible for the non-political activities of the aid administrators — including "publication of monographs and the Journal of Student Financial Aid, training of aid officers, research activities," funding various committees of NASFAA (other than its legislative advocacy committees), "and could administer and fund national meetings, workshops, and leadership conferences" (Newsletter, December 22, 1972).

Not all details were decided by the end of Curtis’s term, but the outline seemed clear. In the National Institute NASFAA had an apparent solution to the financing concerns which had so long plagued the association; the questions being raised were not whether NIFAA would be able to attract the needed support but whether "start-up grants" or institutional membership solicitation would be the proper method of beginning. No one expected immediate results, however, and it was summer of the following year when NIFAA was formally organized with a full Board of Directors, under the chairmanship of Grant Curtis (Newsletter, August 16, 1973). Further progress was slower than anticipated, though, and by September, 1974, the Institute was still being described as "off and running" but lacking "sufficient resources" (Newsletter, September 17, 1974). 1974-75 NASFAA President Edson Sample was still optimistic about the possibilities of success through NIFAA, but he admitted to National Council that "we do not have any solid basis on which to project income to NASFAA from the Institute" (Sample to National Council, July 2, 1974). Sample was thus willing to continue to hold hope for the success of NIFAA, but by the following year further optimism seemed futile. One aid administrator summarized the thoughts on the minds of most of his colleagues:

NIFAA, which far from subsidizing its parent organization was by now financially indebted to NASFAA, agreed with this description, and Chairman Curtis informed Council in early 1975 that a merger of the two organizations should be considered (National Council Minutes, February 12, 1976).

The solution which had seemed so promising in 1972, then, was seen as a failure within three years. During that time a number of members of Council began to rethink the entire structure of their professional association. Sample was perhaps the main instigator of the structural introspection; as early as 1970 he had raised several provocative ideas as to the future of NASFAA. Sometimes he was too far apart from his colleagues; at the advice of some close friends in 1970 he used scissors to delete his proposal for the possible phasing out of regions before distributing his other thoughts on the association to his fellow Council members (Sample, 1981). At other times, however, Sample’s views were in the vanguard and he was frequently able to propose new ideas which were subsequently adopted by NASFAA. As he entered its presidency in 1974, Sample asserted that the

The result of Sample’s request was the establishment of the committee he desired. Chaired by Richard L. Waters of Rutgers University, the committee issued its "Analysis and Recommendations for the Organizational Restructuring of the National Association" in draft form to Council in May, 1975. The "A&R Paper," as it came to be known, would go through three drafts before any decisions were reached. In part, at least, this redrafting resulted from the complex arrangements then in existence. As the committee stated, the aid community had evolved a "three-tiered structure" including state and regional bodies as well as the national association. While states were not technically subdivisions of their regions, nor regions of the national association, because of varying dues structures throughout the nation there were instances when in practice the technical distinctions were blurred. In some states, for example, dues were collected for state, regional, and national memberships at the same time; in some regions a national membership was included in the price of regional dues. Further, the membership was confused by the overlapping roles of NASFAA and NIFAA. The Waters committee looked at the confused state of affairs and concluded that certain changes were inevitable; among these were four distinct alternatives. In order to produce a balanced NASFAA budget "reduced services, increased membership, higher individual dues, or institutional membership fees" would have to be considered (Waters, Ehrensberger, and Jones, 1975).

An examination of the options of expanded membership and dues increases must have convinced the Waters Committee that neither held great promise as an organizational alternative; for although both membership and dues had steadily risen for several years, the Association was still strapped for funds. Membership, for example, had increased from 613 in 1970-71 to a record 2,783 in 1974-75; during the same period dues had been elevated from five dollars to twenty-five dollars annually. Even this increase was not sufficient, and dues would go up again for 1975-76, this time to forty dollars per member. Under this larger dues assessment only 2,461 aid administrators joined NASFAA in 1975-76. While revenues were certainly greater than they had been a few years earlier ($100,667 in 1974-75 compared to $15,678 in 1970-71), the amount of revenue per member (calculated by dividing revenue by membership in a given year) had not grown significantly, and the greater costs of goods and services in 1974-75 probably negated the slight increase which had occurred (Sample, 1986).

Having reached their conclusion that some change was necessary, the Waters Committee proceeded with an analysis of restructuring options, including several different arrangements of state and regional redefinition of roles and boundaries. Their report was highly controversial, and their specific recommendations concerning organizational alternatives were so complex as to defy prompt adoption by anyone. Nevertheless the Committee had reached one conclusion which NASFAA could not ignore:

Among the recommendations of the Waters Committee were the merger of NASFAA and NIFAA and the conversion of NASFAA membership from an individual base to an institutional one. These two issues were destined to become the focal point of discussion, but the A&R Paper had so many other recommendations that the focus at first was obscured. In May the Council had decided to distribute the paper to the membership at a conference scheduled that summer in Aspen, Colorado, but later it was decided that Tombaugh would refine the paper for further Council discussion at Aspen and that Council could later circulate it among the regions. Tombaugh did use the A&R Paper material in a poorly-received speech to the conferees at Aspen. Based partly on the reception given to Tombaugh’s remarks, the Executive Committee in the summer of 1975 appointed an "Ad Hoc Committee" of past presidents to review the A&R Paper and to report suggestions concerning it. The issues were complex, and feelings were strong. Some later charged that a committee made up of past presidents had been "stacked" in favor of structural changes (National Council Minutes, February 12, 1976). Nevertheless, the Committee was formed, and the result was the issuance of yet another document describing structural alternatives.

The Ad Hoc Committee met in August, and its report was submitted to Council in October, 1975. In their report they advocated a course similar to that proposed by Waters, including delineation of state, regional, and national functions, merging NASFAA and NIFAA, institutional membership with dues on a sliding scale based on full-time enrollment, and representation on Council to be related to the number of institutional members within each region (Newsletter, November 9, 1975). The past presidents were not totally unified in their report; Carroll Parish, who was unable to attend the "only lengthy meeting" of the committee, filed a "Minority Report" with Council. In it he called for a continuation of individual dues, an expanded effort to achieve financial security through NIFAA and a membership drive, and a real focus on just what the budgetary requirements of NASFAA were (Parish to National Council, October 18, 1975).

At this point there were so many proposals before Council that confusion predominated. In the resulting debate the Council decided to listen to counsel such as that of Joe McCormick of Mississippi, who, in advising his regional association colleagues of the restructuring debate, had suggested that the A&R Paper "recommends too many changes to occur too soon." Rather than try to make multiple decisions regarding the roles and boundaries of regional and state associations, NASFAA first needed to face the financial issues which had initially prompted the question of restructuring, argued McCormick (McCormick, 1975).

Council apparently agreed, for although 1975-76 President Robert Clark described in his Annual Report the morass of major documents before the membership for action, he also indicated that the main question to be considered was the one of individual or institutional membership (Sample, 1986, p. 1.5.11). The issue had by then dragged on for two years, and it was difficult to see an end in the near future. From the time Dick Tombaugh spoke to the Aspen Conference and made public the A&R Paper recommendation for institutional dues, there were "real struggles in the National Council," which met "late into the night debating those issues" on several occasions (McCormick, 1983). In its October, 1975, meeting, the Council had taken no action on either the Ad Hoc Presidents’ Committee Report or Parish’s "Minority Report;" rather, they had engaged in lengthy discussion and then voted to distribute both reports to the membership (Newsletter, December 11, 1975). In essence this meant postponing a decision indefinitely, since the distribution to the membership implied a deferring of the decision to the regional associations.

Several of the regions were opposed to the idea of institutional dues; their reasons for opposition related chiefly to their pride in previous accomplishments and their concerns over possible loss of autonomy by individual aid administrators in an institutionally based association. Nowhere was the opposition stronger than in the Southern region. McCormick, one member of the Council who had become convinced that institutional dues were the only method of solving the chronic financial penury of NASFAA, was President of SASFAA during the national association’s struggle over changing organizational structure. As such he frequently had to confront the opposition to the idea. In February, 1976, SASFAA formally went on record as being opposed to the changes McCormick favored. Other regions, too, had significant reservations about the proposals; MASFAA particularly expressed its doubts, but its leaders declined to take formal action in opposition (Committee on Long Range Planning, 1977).

The regional opposition was taken seriously by the Executive Committee of NASFAA. They asked the SASFAA committee which had studied the issue on behalf of that region to continue its investigation, this time receiving the views of a national constituency. The SASFAA committee, chaired by Eleanor Morris of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, agreed to report to the National Council at its October, 1976, meeting (Executive Committee Minutes, April 8, 1976). Thus the process dragged on throughout the 1976 year. An underlying issue in the debate was that of a stronger centralized versus continued regionalized control of the organization, but this had less direct effect on deliberations than did the more frequently cited concerns with potential aid administrator loss of control over their own association if institutions could make the decisions for them (Cleveland, 1983). Despite such reservations, the institutional dues question was one that would not simply disappear; in addition to expectations on the part of those favoring the switch that dues income would greatly increase in an institutional arrangement, there was the necessity of securing the proper tax status in order to receive grant income.