Senator WAYNE MORSE, TRINITY COLLEGE, Washington, D.O., October 3, 1967. Chairman, Education Subcommittee, U.S. Senate, DEAR SENATOR MORSE: This letter is in support of the petition of the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Foundation that National Defense Education Act Title IV graduate fellowship appropriations be maintained on a level which will support at least 6,000 first year graduate students annually. The shortage of qualified college teachers grows more and more acute, and the public interest seems clearly to require continued and augmented federal assistance in the vital area. Sincerely yours, Sister JOAN BLAND, Woodrow Wilson Adviser. LAWRENCE UNIVERSITY, Appleton, Wis., October 5, 1967. Senator WAYNE MORSE, Washington, D.C. DEAR SENATOR MORSE: I sincerely believe that it would be a national calamity if the number of NDEA Title IV first year graduate fellowships for the fall of 1968 were cut below 6,000. It is bad enough to lose the Woodrow Wilson Fellowships; it would be far worse if the very same year your committee were to cut back on Title IV. Fortunately, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation will be able to continue its immensely valuable identification program, even without its full fellowship program. But the future of even this is in doubt. Might it not be possible for the federal government and the Wilson Foundation to join forces? If a few of the NDEA Fellowships were awarded to the winners of the Wilson competition, this would enable the identification program to continue and allow these unusually able students to enjoy an NDEA Title IV Fellowship at the school of their choice. Whatever you may think of my suggestion, I do hope that you will do everything you can to maintain the number of NDEA Fellowships. Sincerely, CARL WELLMAN, Chairman. RIPON COLLEGE, Ripon, Wis., October 5, 1967. Hon. WAYNE MORSE, Washington, D.C. DEAR SENATOR MORSE: In view of the fact that the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Program has been drastically reduced, I hope you will use your best efforts to see that the slack is taken up by the National Defense Education Act Title IV Graduate Fellowships. Only in this way can the flow of able students into graduate fields in the Fine Arts and Humanities be maintained. With all the money that is going into the training of scientists under the National Science Foundation program, it seems to me especially important to support the Fine Arts and Humanities in every way possible. Sincerely, ROBERT P. ASHLEY, Vice President and Dean of the College. Senator WAYNE MORSE, WISCONSIN STATE UNIVERSITY, Chairman, Education Subcommittee of the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare, Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. DEAR SENATOR MORSE: It is important to maintain, if not expand, the opportunities for fellowships for graduate study under Title IV of the National Defense Education Act. Frequently we see capable students start a career of work immediately after receiving their bachelor degrees because of the lack of opportunity for financial assistance for graduate school. They become involved in a job, marriage, raising a family, and community activities, and many give up the possibility of graduate study permanently. Thus, the source of potential college teachers and other publie servants requiring advanced degrees is diminished. Specifically we urge your support for at least maintaining the provision for the 6,000 first-year graduate fellowships for the fall of 1968. The proposal for a change in NDEA to permit a national competition for a limited number of Title IV fellowships is wise and we hope your Subcommittee will report favorably on this matter. This competition stimulates interest and desire in attending graduate school in many more students than are finally awarded. This stimulation of interest is healthy and leads a number of the competitors who may not be winners to resolve to go to graduate school, seeking other opportunities in fellowships and assistantships. The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation has the organization and machinery for administering competition of this kind through a grant from the Ford foundation. A number of competitive fellowships with selections being made by the assistance of the Woodrow Wilson Foundation in conjunction with the Office of Education would significantly expand the number of capable graduates that will help reduce, eventually, the nationwide shortage of college teachers at very modest cost in tax funds. Most sincerely yours, CHARLES B. VARNEY, Director of the Honors Program; Professor of Geography UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING, Laramie, Wyo., October 4, 1967. Senator WAYNE MORSE, Washington, D.C. MY DEAR SENATOR MORSE: I hope it will be possible for Congress to support at least 6,000 first-year graduate fellowships for the fall of 1968. As you realize, the problem of obtaining competent university and college teachers is one that requires the assistance of the Federal Government. My own feeling is that Ti 4 has been of great assistance in this regard. I have personally been impressed by the method used by the Office of Education in allocating fellowships to be selected by approved programs in the graduate schools of the country. I feel that this has led to an involvement of the entire university community in this respect. It is my personal feeling that this method of selection is preferable to a national competition where a student is awarded a fellowship and is then allowed to go to any graduate school that will admit him. As we know from previos experience with the National Science Foundation fellowships and the Woodrow Wilson fellowships, this means there has been a relatively uneven distribut.on of fellowships at the various graduate schools of the United States. Any help that you can provide in this program will be appreciated by the graduate community. Sincerely yours, ROBERT H. BRUCE, D-4 Senator YARBOROUGH. Are there any further comments by anyone! If not, the subcommittee will stand in recess until 10 o'clock in the morning in this room when Secretary Willard Wirtz of the Department of Labor will be the next witness. I want to thank you for youar patience. We had a schedule that we had hoped to complete by noo You have patiently waited. I appreciate that very much. (Whereupon, at 3:35 p.m. the subcommittee adjourned to reconverx at 10 a.m., Friday, April 5, 1968.) EDUCATION LEGISLATION, 1968 FRIDAY, APRIL 5, 1968 U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON EDUCATION OF THE COMMITTEE ON LABOR AND PUBLIC WELFARE, Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to recess, at 10:05 a.m., in Room 4232, New Senate Office Building, Senator Wayne Morse (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. Present: Senators Morse (presiding), and Yarborough. Also present: Stewart E. McClure, chief clerk; Charles Lee, professional staff member; Richard D. Smith, associate counsel; and Roy H. Millenson, minority clerk. Senator MORSE. The hearing will come to order. The committee is privileged this morning to have Secretary Wirtz as our witness, accompanied by Mr. Philip Arnow, Director of the Office of Policy Planning, and Dr. Curtis Aller, Associate Manpower Administrator. If they will come forward to the table, we will be delighted to have them participate in the hearings. The chairman only wants to make this comment in presenting the Secretary of Labor to this public record this morning. I know of no one in the administration-no one in the country-who has sought to do more to help solve the basic problem which we have been talking about the last few days than the Secretary of Labor. He has recognized by action, through his Department, the importance of our all working together to try to resolve the job training program that is so essential if we are going to resolve one of the major problems involved in our ghettos and our city problems in this Republic. Therefore, I am delighted that we have been able to obtain the Secretary of Labor as a witness this morning in connection with the programs that are involved in the vocational education bill. Mr. Secretary, I want you to know that the record that has been made thus far by the witnesses who have appeared before us have instilled me and my colleagues on the committee with renewed hope that the problem that confronts us is solvable. We can, if we all work together, I am sure, produce a solution to this problem-not today, not tomorrow, not the day after tomorrow, but in the immediate years ahead. We recognize that, after all, this is not a short-term problem but a long-term one. But we are on our way through this bill. I have spoken highly of it in behalf of the Johnson administration. It is another proof of the determination of the President to meet these domestic problems that confront us. 93-989-68-pt. 6-24 We are all aware, as witness after witness has said, that one of our problems is, of course, the problem of funding. But the immediate necessity is to get the law on the books. If we can get a law on the books that has the vision and offers the hope that this vocational education bill does, I am satisfied that we will be able to get the funds as rapidly as possible to implement it. I want you to know how pleased I am that you are willing to give us the benefit of your expertise on this problem. You may proceed in your own way. STATEMENT OF HON. W. WILLARD WIRTZ, SECRETARY OF LABOR; ACCOMPANIED BY PHILIP ARNOW, DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF POLICY PLANNING; AND DR. CURTIS ALLER, ASSOCIATE MANPOWER ADMINISTRATOR Secretary WIRTZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have filed with the committee a prepared statement which I should like to say to this committee is in this particular instance peculiarly a staff paper and a staff statement. I mention that because it reflects what has been done throughout the Department of Labor in Mr. Arnow's group, in Mr. Aller's group, in the employment service and in all parts of the Department to meet what we have come to think of increasingly as a central problem of the country today. I am proud of this statement and prouder because it is limited in less than usual degree to my own views or, putting it affirmatively, this is a document that reflects to more than a usual degree the thinking of the Department so there would be great satisfaction in going through it in detail but I prefer to at least suggest the possibility that you might find it would meet the circumstances of the day to offer it for inclusion in the record, and summarize it here only in the briefest fashion. Senator MORSE. The prepared statement of the Secretary of Labor will be printed in the record and the Secretary may proceed to summarize it, add to it, or excerpt from it in any way he sees fit. Secretary WIRTZ. My statement will be short and it will take as a starting point the events of the past 24 hours, which make it impossible to think about anything else except in terms of referral to the fact of Dr. King's assassination last night. I know nothing about the direct responsibility for that act. I would be almost sure that whoever was most directly responsible did not have a decent chance at an education and that behind him, as part of the motivation of that sinister, tragic, act, there were others who did not have a fair chance at an education, who probably went to schools where all the emphasis was on training somebody to go to college and since they were not going to college and there was no adequate educational opportunity for them. Beyond that, as the Nation reacts today and in the days ahead to this latest instance of tragedy, there will be a sharp demarcation between those that had a fair chance at an education and those who did not. Those who had a fair chance in education will realize and know that this is a system in which there will inevitably and occasionally be tragedy, and will know how to adjust to that fact that there will be others who will not understand. There will be a line between those who had a chance and those who did not have a chance. I expect it will be between those whose education fitted their needs and those who were forced into schools not planned for them but for others who were going on to college. Mr. Chairman, the bill which you have introduced in the Senate as S. 3099 is directed, in my judgment, in our judgment, at the problem which, over the long run-and long run today means only 2, 3, or 4 years at the rate civilization is progressing-what we think of as the core problem before us. It provides in general for a linking together of the education and the employment opportunities for the youth of this country. It proceeds from the assumption that we have made a great mistake when we treat a single individual as being part of the educational process up to the day that process stops and as being part of the employment process from that day on. This presents no problem if we have taken him across the bridge which we call college, but it presents an almost insurperable problem for that individual who is not going on to college. This statement includes the statistical reflections of that human fact. I would hope that these statistics become a well known part of this record for the story they tell of youth unemployment in this country. I am talking particularly about unemployment between the ages of 16 and 19-we can stretch that out to about 14 to 22-we have a record of youth unemployment in this country which unfortunately from our standpoint has no parallel in any other nation in the world. We have to face up to the fact. With an educational system of which we have thought we had reason to be proud, and with an economy which works better than any other economy in the world, what are the prices that we are paying? Is it someplace between 15 and 40 percent of the American youth who have to move from education to work only through a period of bitter, bitter unemployment? It just does not make sense and it is not true in any other country with which we like to compare ourselves. I am not going to repeat those statistics. Senator YARBOROUGH. Mr. Chairman, pardon me. Senator MORSE. The Senator from Texas. Senator YARBOROUGH. Mr. Secretary, would you please repeat that sentence on what happens to youth that does not happen to other countries a little more slowly? I did not understand it all. Secretary WIRTZ. In a nation which is legislatively proud of having made its economy work well, and in a nation which perhaps, with considerably less justification, has been proud of its educational system, we drop more young Americans into the raging torrent of unemployment between their education and their eventual employment than any other country with which we like to compare ourselves. The statistics are so many that you could take almost any one, but you will get the fairest figure if you assume that on the average, which here conceals the worse phase, about one out of five or six young Americans has to go through a period of unemployment before he or she moves from education to employment. In other nations, the Scandinavian nations, the Western Eurpean nations, Japan, Canada-all of those with which we like to compare ourselves-that is not true. Our youth unemployment rate is three to four times our adult unemployment rate. In other countries with which we like to compare ourselves, it is either the |