talltpaguy speaks the truth. The baby boomers (of which I'm a proud senior member) received relatively good quality public educations -- even with segregation giving many States a major black eye until the mid 1960s. Universities grew faster and created more endowments than any other time in history. More public libraries were built in places that had never had a public library. The current system of medical schools and science research facilities on university campuses grew to an all time high that has yet to be matched. But it really started to go down hill when the Gipper took charge.
He was never -- as in NEVER -- a supporter of higher education, accusing those teaching in the University of California System to be nothing but "godless communists spreading the word of Marx and Lenin." Many of his encounters as Governor of California, especially with the faculty of UC Berkeley, were filmed by the press and are readily available for viewing over the web. It isn't hard to see that he was substantially less than an intellectual match for those hired and charged with directing the educations of millions of university students during his ad hoc on camera verbal shout fests. He was of a different generation; that of Senator Joseph McCarthy -- the alcoholic, self-hating closet queen from Wisconsin.
Since Reagan's presidency there has been a regular, systematic attempt to not properly fund education in the USA. My own parents who grew up with out houses and pumped their own culinary water benefitted from better public school educations than the generations who stumbled into the 1980's with big hair and overgrown thumbs from playing with their Atari video games.
It took me a couple of decades to realize the last real education president we've ever had was LBJ. Go figure.
I think Joan Didion summed up Reagan's interest in education best in an essay she wrote for Esquire Magazine about the "new" governor's mansion ostensibly built for occupation by Ronnie and Queen Nancy during his last couple of years as CA Governor. However, due to construction delays, the Reagans never took up residence. But in anticipation for Ronnie's great intellect, the Reagan's hand-chosen architect had included "in the spacious open living area of California-style design is a small set of built in book shelves. Just enough for a small collection of Readers Digest Condensed books."