Something Interesting in Ch. 15National Youth Administration (NYA)The National Youth Administration (or NYA) was the idea of Eleanor Roosevelt. President Roosevelt, however, was against creating programs for young people. I don't understand why he wouldn't want to but I'm sure he had his reasons. Not necessarily good reasons, but reasons. His wife, who was working closely with educators and relief officials, convinced him to address the problem that young people were not involved enough in their communities. Through their lobbying, they finally changed Roosevelt's mind. On June 26 of 1935, the NYA was established as a part of the New Deal program that was directed at the unemployed youth between the ages of 16 and 25. If i had lived back then I would have qualified.
The NYA had a two part plan for dealing with this problem. The first was in exchange for work, students could be given grants for high school and college. That way they could attend school and prevent the unemployment pool from becoming any larger at the same time. The second part was for those that were both unemployed and not attending school. The NYA wanted to combine economic relief with federally funded jobs that would provide skills they could use in the future.
Unfortunately, in 1937 the project had gained some critics because it had failed to provide enough funds for on-the-job training. This caused their priorities to shift to emphasize developing skills.The NYA's priorities changed again in 1939 as unemployment began to decrease and war approached. It emphasized self-defense skills for the next four years because of this.The NYA was abolished in 1943 despite its success, as war time spending increased. I think it's interesting that they would shut down a program that was working so well but i can also understand that they needed the money they were putting into the NYA for the war effort.Source 1Source 2
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