1980: The United States Department of Education is developed, comprised of a staff of seventeen thousand full-time employees.

Today: Some people feel that the centralized Department of Education should be disbanded because it cannot adequately understand local issues that affect schools' environments.

1980: A study by UCLA and the American Council on Education finds that college freshmen express more interest in money and power than at any time in the past fifteen years. It is the beginning of a period that came to be known as The "Me" Decade.

Today: After a long period of economic stability in the 1990s, many students take economic stability for granted. Colleges are seeing renewed interest in careers that are not focused on accumulating wealth, such as mathematics and poetry.

1980: Humanity's understanding of the universe expands with the findings of Voyager I, an unmanned space craft that made new discoveries...