The third big job is the training of technicians and the nurses aids, and we need people that are going to build the subway, we need people to manage our hospitals, we need someone to help in the business of environmental improvement of air, water, and soil pollution. This kind of technician can be trained and developed in a broadly based community college that would be getting the cooperation of the vocational schools and the private and technical schools that we have here in the District of Columbia.

The fourth big job that we have in adult education is the whole continuing education process of developing better citizens, of getting home rule, I hope, for the District of Columbia, of being prepared for it or having us be prepared for it, being more productive, updating our skills. This we will continue to have done by many. In fact, all of these agencies will make a contribution. The schools, the business, industry, and Government, private institutions of higher learning, the professional trade and labor groups and the laborers and art galleries will all be making a contribution to the enrichment of life. And then the 50 area, which I think is very important in adult education, and that is the updating of our citizens, of our accountants, of our doctors. This, I think, will continue to be done by the institutions, private institutions we have, and I see this as a real responsibility of the colleges of arts and sciences. This college with tax support should be what I would call a community development approach to the District of Columbia.

It should tackle the difficult jobs of poverty. It should put on demonstration projects. It should provide research in order that the District of Columbia could be a sort of showcase for the world because we are the world's capital. But we cannot really measure up to this unless we provide continuous educational opportunities for all the adults of this community as well as to provide educational opportunities for the young people who are graduating from the schools and those who do not graduate from the schools, both public and private. Senator MORSE. Dr. Holden, I want to thank you very much. I want to tell you that the material you presented to the committee is something I am going to have to analyze. I have a recommendation to make to the president of either one of the propsed institutions and that they had better draft you early in the program because you have given so much thought to this that I think your views ought to be very carefully considered as they set up the program.

Dr. HOLDEN. I would like to say there might be some people who think there is not a need for this and as you know St. Louis is a little smaller than the District of Columbia, but in 1963 they did precisely what I am recommending here. In other words, they developed a community college and they had three locations in St. Louis. And they started out in September of 1963 with about 790 students, as of February. And last year they had 7,000 in these 3 community colleges. So it can be done.

Senator MORSE. Thank you very much.

Our next witness will be Mr. Robert L. McKee, president, Northern Virginia Technical College, representing American Association of Junior Colleges.

We are delighted to have you. I notice you have been here for some time. You notice the procedure I am following. You may proceed in your own way.

STATEMENT OF ROBERT L. MCKEE, PRESIDENT, NORTHERN VIRGINIA TECHNICAL COLLEGE, REPRESENTING AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF JUNIOR COLLEGES

Mr. MCKEE. In place of taking the time to read the statement prepared by the American Association of Junior Colleges, which I am representing today, I would like to just briefly summarize a point or two that they make and have it inserted in the record.

Senator MORSE. The entire statement will be inserted in the record at this point and you many summarize it.

(The document referred to follows:)

STATEMENT OF ROBERT L. MCKEE, PRESIDENT, NORTHERN VIRGINIA TECHNICAL COLLEGE, BAILEY'S CROSSROADS, VA., REPRESENTING THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF JUNIOR COLLEGES

NEED FOR A PUBLIC COMMUNITY COLLEGE IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee, I am Robert L. McKee, president of Northern Virginia Technical College, Bailey's Crossroads, Va. I am here today on behalf of the American Association of Junior Colleges and its more than 600 member institutions. I wish to express our appreciation for your kind invitation to appear before this subcommittee and to discuss S. 293, the bill which would establish a public community college and a public 4-year college in the District of Columbia. While our association is favorable to the establishment of a 4-year college, I will confine my statement to the need for a community college.

I believe that the general case for establishing these institutions has been made very well in the report of the President's Committee in 1964. As the report stated, Washington is the only city of its size in the United States which is so lacking in educational opportunity beyond the high school. It is a shocking matter that the Nation's Capital, with all its resources, does so little for the education of its own youth beyond the high school. As we all know, the seriousness of this problem is intensified because of the large number of people in the District of Columbia with low incomes, limited educational backgrounds, and in many cases, limited job skills.

As President Johnson said in his recent statement on manpower, the United States is faced with a growing shortage of labor in many fields-industrial, technical, office-related, and so on-while at the same time many people are still unemployed, or employed far below the level of their potential job skills.

A public, comprehensive community college can play a vital part in the expansion of education opportunity for the people of the District of Columbia. Such a college has at least three special functions, two of which are not duplicated by any other institutions:

(1) It can provide the first 2 years of college-parallel work at a relatively low cost to students, many of whom could not otherwise afford a college education, within reasonable commuting distance.

(2) It can train large numbers of people in technical, occupational, and vocational fields at the post-secondary level, to meet the specialized manpower needs of a highly industrialized and rapidly changing society.

(3) It can offer opportunities for adults to repair their educational and cultural deficiencies and to acquire new skills, either to move to new jobs or to upgrade themselves in their present work. Adult or continuing education is one of the most important functions of any comprehensive community college.

I would emphasize especially the second and third functions-occupational education and adult education. The experience of a great many urban areas which are similar to Washington in their needs and problems-for example, New York, Chicago, Baltimore, Cleveland, St. Louis, Portland-proves that a community college invariably encourages both young people and adults to continue their education-people who in many cases had never previously considered education beyond the high school. Indeed, a community college can serve as an inspiration for a whole community, stimulating parents and secondary school

educators to encourage more young people to make a good high school record and to plan for college.

The experience of many American cities and States shows that the very existence of a community college works to increase substantially the percentage of young people who continue their education beyond the high school.

It is

A community college is more, of course, than an investment in people. also an investment in the needs of the community-in a better educated, more skilled, more stable population, better able to meet the need for skilled and trained people of all kinds, in our changing society.

The success of the American community college can be seen in its rapid growth in almost every part of the United States. In the fall of 1965, over 1,292,000 students were enrolled in over 750 community colleges in the United States. This represented a growth of over 200,000 students in 1 year—a rate which would mean a doubling of enrollment in 5 years. Fifty-one new community colleges opened last fall. Many more are in the planning stages, and existing colleges are often doubling and tripling within a few years. The District of Columbia should be a leader in the development of public higher education along these lines, a model for the Nation, rather than the laggard behind all 50 States which it is now.

Let me close by stating once more, as emphatically as I can, that the establishment of a public community college in the District of Columbia is one of the most positive steps which the U.S. Congress can take to help the District, the Washington metropolitan area, and indirectly the Nation as a whole.

Mr. McKEE. The statement basically comes out with some support for the community college system and most of the statement deals with remarks toward S. 293 bill. It also indicates though that it is very much in favor of the 4-year college. It talks a little bit about the District of Columbia as being the only city of its size lacking in post-highschool education and this being our Nation's Capital, it is time that we really got very serious about our problem here.

This seriousness is intensified because of the large number of lowincome family groups.

The statement also talks briefly about the three main functions of the community college and just briefly I would like to indicate what we all know, that it provides a transfer program, an occupational program, and an adult education program.

The statement also indicates it is the latter two that should receive special emphasis here and particularly the adult education program. This has been, I think, understated up until just a few minutes ago here throughout the hearings.

A number of States dealing with the community colleges encourages youth to continue their education in the community and make a contribution to the community as well as the individual. It is high time we thought of taxes for education as one of the provinces of our society.

At this point I would like to make a few remarks more of a personal nature. I am getting more concerned-if I sat here much longer I think I would take off on one of these sermons you talked about although I am not prone to give sermons. But there has been so many statements of general concern and information supporting, but not too much looking ahead to what this is going to mean for us here.

I think if you are going to do a job it should be done, obviously, right. I am afraid that the people here involved do not realize the magnitude of the problem they are coping with and they are not gearing up the proper machinery to really cope with the magnitude of providing a higher education system for the District.

I would like to indicate and I strongly believe that there should be a free public community college system. I think this is what our Nation is heading for. We quarreled about charging a few dollars

for elementary and high schools as they came into our society and I think, obviously, we are moving toward free community colleges as the educational requirements of our society increase.

I would get worried about two or three things. But before I touch on those, very briefly I might indicate just a little bit of the magnitude of the problem as I would understand it in the size of the enrollment of this proposed community college. I think that whoever put the figures together in the President's report indicating that 1,400 students might be expected to attend probably did this with considerable thought but somewhere in the printing someone must have dropped a decimal point. That should be actually 14,000 not 1,400. I can base this on several points of reference, that the national average population attending a 2-year community college is 1.2 percent of the population usually attends a community college. This is higher in some States, 2.5 percent of the population attending community college. Your own State of Oregon, with a little over double the population of the District, has something like 21,000 enrolled in a relatively new community college system or at least a strong assent in the last 5 years which is growing rapidly.

This would indicate that the 12,000 is quite conservative.

I might indicate also, as you know, Northern Virginia Technical College serves the four counties and three cities of northern Virginia with about equal population to the District here. We started the new college out there last summer from scratch with no equipment; no staff; no program, no nothing; and opened with better than 500 students. This was 100 days to put the college together. In the second 100 days of operation, we have doubled since then and with about 1,140 students.

We anticipate something like 3,600 enrolled and our capacity for growth depends upon our capacity to build the institution. The District is much more in need of a community college than northern Virginia. If we are thinking of concepts like this I think the District needs to reevaluate the objective here and the capacity and need for this community college.

I was very appreciative of the remarks of the gentleman just before me, talking about six campuses. We are talking of five campuses in northern Virginia. I think six is very appropriate.

I might just briefly mention a couple of my concerns. I get so concerned about this I could go on for some time and I realize your time is very important. I would get quite worried about getting the community college mixed up with or tied to the administrative control of the 8-through-12 school system or a senior institution. Again this is a personal concern but the States where I have seen the community college movement really move and one of the successes of Virginia's rapid growth is a clean-cut administrative organization with a local board sponsor whose only business is to run that community college, and a State board whose only business is to run a system of community colleges with direct appropriations from the general assembly and from the district or county it serves.

It seems to me if you expect to really do a job it takes clean administrative control and I think some of the comments and concerns in your bill is attempting to do this. But also I would get a little worried with a common board for the community college and the senior institution and please, sir, do not put them all on one campus.