1 Appointed by U.S. circuit court judge, by city board of education, by city commissioner and board of education.

Source: Walter Crosby Eells, "Boards of Control of Universities and Colleges," Educational Records XL11 (October 1961), 338.

Mr. MUIRHEAD. The unique character of the government of the District of Columbia makes it difficult to draw on the experiences and practices in other jurisdictions for guidelines to the method of constituting the Board of Higher Education. The President's Committee recommended appointment by the Board of Commissioners from a panel prepared by a nominating committee appointed by the Board of Commissioners.

There are three major reasons for establishing a separate Board for the administration of higher education in the District.

First, the planning and establishment of the two new colleges is an enormous challenge. It will require the full effort of the dedicated citizens who will serve on the Board of Higher Education during the formative years of the new institutions. To impose this task on the present Board of Education, responsible as it is for the task of administering a huge elementary-secondary school system, would make it impossible for the new colleges to receive the attention they will require.

Secondly, experience throughout the country points up the advantages of separating the responsibility for institutions of higher education from the responsibility for the elementary and secondary schools.

In an institution of higher education, the Board generally should leave the establishment of academic standards, the planning of curriculums and the methods of teaching largely in the hands of the faculty, with the president giving guidance. The Board's main responsibilities will be for the finances of the institutions, overall planning and policies, and for the appointment of its chief administrative officers.

Both the programs and the methods of operation of institutions of higher education differ so much from those of a public school system that a separate Board has been found to be highly desirable.

Finally, it is vital that the governing board for the two new colleges be both broadly representative of the District and knowledgeable of the goals and nature of higher education, with the members selected for the wisdom and skill they can bring to strengthening and guiding the new colleges.

A WORD ABOUT OVERALL NEED FOR THE COLLEGES

The need for the two colleges can be considered from three vantage points: Opportunities offered in other cities of comparable size, present higher educational opportunities in the District, and the need for additional opportunity to attend college for the graduates of the District's high schools.

Studies in the economics of higher education make it abundantly clear that returns on investment in education are surer and higher than on any other investment the individual and the community can make, a point the chairman has just made. Some of the returns to be considered are: higher cultural level, lower crime rate, higher personal income, lower welfare costs, higher consumption of goods, better business environment, more attractive city, better popular image, more and better professional and technical employees, and possibly most important of all it provides an opportunity for the enrichment of the individual.

The President's Committee examined the provision of public higher education in each of 16 cities in the United States that are comparable to Washington in size and found that almost without exception each has recognized the need for public colleges as well as private institutions of higher education. Five of these cities have local, public community colleges with low tuition ($250 a year or less) and a sixth is organizing such a college. Seven of these cities have the advantage of State-supported colleges or universities with overall costs (including room and board as well as tuition) of less than $750 a year, and six additional cities are in States where the overall costs of attending State institutions are about $750 but below $1,000.

In nearby Montgomery County, Md., a second community college campus opened last fall; Prince Georges County in Maryland and northern Virginia have established community facilities for assisting in meeting the needs for higher education. These facilities are in addition to those which are publicly supported as State colleges and universities.

In addition to 15 privately controlled colleges and universities in Baltimore, there are 5 institutions of higher education under public control that serve the needs of a portion of the population.

Community colleges over the Nation are opening up at a rate approaching 25 per year. In the District of Columbia, on the other hand, there is only one institution of higher education under public control, the District of Columbia Teachers College, and it is a special-purpose institution with inadequate facilities and resources.

Howard University receives considerable support from the Congress, but it is under private control and its mission has been that of service nationally and internationally with a high percentage of foreign student enrollment.

In the fall of 1963, only about one-half of the high school graduates living in the District of Columbia who started to college that year entered an institution of higher education in the District of Columbia, and only 26 percent of all undergraduates enrolled in District of Columbia institutions were District of Columbia residents. The comparable average for all States was 78 percent, with 26 the lowest and 94 the highest.

None of the five universities in the District of Columbia addresses itself mainly to the needs of District residents and none of them is in a position to extend any tuition advantage to residents of the District. Each of the five (including Howard University, which has more District students than the others) with good reason feels itself to have a national rather than a local educational mission.

It is generally recognized, moreover, that the costs of tuition and fees required for attendance at District universities and colleges (as well as institutions outside the District) make most of them beyond financial reach of large numbers of District high school graduates. The tuition charges for last fall in the five major institutions of higher education in the District for which data are available were as follows: American University, $1,430; Catholic University, $1,325; Georgetown University, $1,550; George Washington University, $1,400; Howard University, which is subsidized by public funds, $500.

An examination of the relationship between family income of District high school graduates and the percentage of such graduates who enter college upon graduation indicates that in the case of one public high school serving an area where the median family income is above $10,000, a 4-year mean of 74 percent of its graduates entered college. At the other extreme, the four high schools serving areas where family incomes were below $5,000 had, with one exception, the lowest percentages of college attendance in the District-20.6; 18.9; 16.6; and 26.9 percent.

Thus there are substantial factors, ranging from the missions and programs of the institutions to the relatively high cost of attendance, which make it impossible for the existing universities and colleges in the District to meet the needs of those high school graduates who are presently unable to go on to college.

THE PUBLIC COMMUNITY COLLEGE

We have an economy that constantly requires more specialized skills and, in particular, an increasing number of workers with training beyond the high school level but sometimes short of a 4-year college degree. And, there are fewer job opportunities each year for young people with limited skills and with no training beyond the high school. Unemployment, poverty, and crime are closely related to the lack of education. When the pupils now in the first grade graduate from high school in 1978, it is predicted that more than 60 percent of all employment opportunities will be in professional, managerial, or skilled technical occupations requiring education beyond the high school.

Senator MORSE. May I interrupt? The chairman did not crib but I am glad your research came forward with the same figures I used in my opening statement.

Mr. MUIRHEAD. This is one major need the public community college can meet the need for 2-year programs of technical and semiprofessional education. The realities of present employment needs of the District suggest some of the occupations for which the program of the community college should be planned: technicians in the engineering sciences and in medicine, dentistry, and public health, designers, and draftsmen, business machine repairmen, specialized salesmen, and

nurses.

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The community college should also train skilled employees, such as bookkeepers, office machine operators, and secretaries and have programs in some of the crafts and trades-mechanics in automobile, air conditioning and refrigeration maintenance and repair, for example. Both the District and Federal Governments have heavy demands in many areas that could be served by a community college. Another major need the community college can meet is preparation for transfer to 4-year colleges and university for further education. There are many young people in the District whose academic aptitude cannot be gaged by conventional measures, largely because of cultural, economic, and educational handicaps. These young people cannot now be admitted to existing colleges and universities in the District. Yet with their curricular deficiencies remedied and their abilities improved, and through counseling, many of these students can and will become fully qualified for admission, with advanced standing, to a 4-year college by successful completion of community college work.

Senator MORSE. I want to interrupt at this point because what you said needs to be emphasized and attention focused on it. I think this is one of the great contributions community colleges are making to higher education in its broad scope. There is no doubt about the fact that these community colleges are really saving from lives of little educational background thousands of young men and women in this country who go through for 1, 2, and 3 years and then transfer to other institutions where there is some specialty in which they want to specialize.

I have seen this in my own research on this subject over and over again. In fact, one of my most moving experiences in connection with the contributions that community colleges are making to the young people of this country occurred 3 or 4 years ago in Bend, Oreg. At this time the community college was operated in connection with the public high school. The classes started when high school classes were concluded for the day and they ran until midnight. I went into that community college at 1 a.m.

The instructor said, "Sometimes we have to throw them out at 2 a.m. because after all there is a limit that physically they should be allowed to take." Then he talked to me about the students in the chemistry laboratory. He said, "I want to tell you, Senator, that at least 70 percent of the students in this room would never have gone into higher educational training if we had not been able to offer this facility. They have since built a beautiful small community college on another site in Bend that is carrying on this work."

Somehow, we should be able to get the people to translate that service into the human values that you have outlined in this statement; what it means to them culturally, academically, what it means to their lifetime happiness. We really should reach the point in this country where we are going to pay attention to the responsibilities of government to do something to try to make our population more happy. After all, if we want to philosophize about what life should be all about we cannot eliminate this matter of doing those things that will bring to human beings deserved happiness. I would like to have us never lose sight in these hearings of these human values that we are trying to promote here in the District of Columbia. That is why, with apologies to you, I have intervened.

This statement of yours caused to flash through my mind the experience that I had in Bend, Oreg., which will always leave an indel ible mark on me because I saw it with my own eyes.

You may proceed.

Mr. MUIRHEAD. If I may respond by saying these principles that you espouse and support; you have translated them into action so effectively by identifying the community colleges, and much of the legislation enacted under your leadership specifically underscored the need for community colleges.

This great new movement, if you will, in higher education, does need to get special support.

Senator MORSE. Thank you.

Mr. MUIRHEAD. Perhaps the unique feature of the comprehensive community college is its broad range of programs, from the technical program to the first 2 years of the regular college curriculum, which offers almost every high school graduate an environment in which he can find a program suited to his abilities, and can succeed.

In the community college, the young person who initially wants a 4-year program and a bachelor's degree, but who would fail and drop out of a 4-year college, can be guided into a technical or semiprofessional program for which he does have aptitude. And, on the other hand, the student whose ability to complete a college degree has been hidden under cultural and educational handicaps can be discovered and can be readied for transfer to a 4-year college.

As to immediate need for a public community college in the District, studies by the President's Committee established that there will be no lack of applicants for admmission.

Assuming the broad range of programs and opportunities in the community college described in the committee's report, it envisages an annual entering class of about 1,400 students during the early years of the college. This, in turn, would suggest a total enrollment of perhaps 2,500 during those years, rising to an enrollment of more than 3,000 by 1975.

THE COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

There are at least two urgent reasons why the District should establish a college of arts and sciences. First, the function of teacher education in the District must have a new educational and physical setting.

Second, high school graduates from the District deserve the opportunity now open to young people in every State to attend a public, low-cost college offering a liberal education at least through the baccalaureate degree.

On the first point, it is evident that the present physical plant of District of Columbia Teachers College is woefully inadequate and has been for many years. Indeed, the third floors of both of its buildings have been condemned and are unusable. Given this physical setting and other problems, the college faces a decline in the quality of its faculty, facilities, and its student body.

From its studies, the President's Committee concluded that there are presently between 350 and 400 "college-able" graduates of the District's public high schools (other than those preparing to teach) who do not go to college under existing circumstances but who would have