3. To train the large number and the great variety of technicians and other skilled persons on whom a highly industrialized and rapidly changing society depends; 4. To offer opportunities for adults to repair their cultural and educational deficiencies, to redirect their abilities and to improve their knowledge and competence; and 5. To prepare students for further formal education in 4-year colleges and universities. The community college, through presenting diverse vistas for development and for entrance to careers, will encourage completion of high school and will open to high school graduates opportunities for parttime or full-time studies leading to advanced study, to employment in a variety of skilled and semiprofessional occupations, to more effective participation in public affairs, to greater enjoyment of esthetic and expressive activities, and to continuing pursuit of learning. The community college is visualized as a phase of "continuing" education rather than as "terminal" and as comprehensive rather than narrow in its functions and in the population served. It will offer a variety of programs, each of which will be under the necessity of establishing its own criteria of excellence. On the basis of data developed for the committee by its director of studies. the late Dr. James H. Case, Jr., entering classes of approximately 1,400 students are anticipated in the early years of the college, and substantially larger numbers in subsequent years. As many as half of the enrollees may be young people who, in the absence of the community college, would terminate formal education with high school. If I am confident of anything it is that the estimates of enrollment are too low rather than too high, if this has been the experience everywhere. Recent surveys analyzed by the committee's staff indicated a need in the District for a larger supply of technicians and semiprofessional workers in the engineering sciences, medicine, dentistry, nursing services and public health, industrial design and drafting, business machine operation and repair, and many other highly skilled and specialized occupations in government, the professions, public and private corporations, and businesses. The community college can help to develop the skills and techniques needed for initial employment, while emphasizing acquisition of the basic understandings which will make for adaptability and facilitate retraining and continued learning. The community college may also be expected to make important contributions to the continuing education of employed workers and other adults through programs of general education, programs on public issues, and programs in the expressive arts as well as programs directed toward training and retraining for occupations. A word regarding the governance of the colleges. Both bills before you-S. 293 and S. 1612-are responsive to the intent of the committee in their provisions for the establishment of a Board of Higher Education and in the powers entrusted to the Board. The administration of the two colleges is placed under a board whose primary concern will be the development in the District of public higher education of unexcelled quality, leaving to the present Board of Education the multitudinous concerns incident to the operation of the lower schools. This arrangement will facilitate the orderly devel opment of the new colleges without impeding the necessary communication and collaboration with the public schools of the District. The special provision with respect to the District of Columbia Teachers College will permit the orderly transfer of the function of teacher education to the new college of arts and sciences and the prudent disposition of the assets of the teachers college. The other powers and duties assigned to the Board are those usually exercised by such boards. Students of higher education consider the powers and duties enumerated essential to the governance and effective operation of institutions of higher education. I concur fully with the statement presented to the subcommittee by Dr. Peter Muirhead, Associate Commissioner of Education, and to the other statements which I have heard on the record this morning. In particular, I support Dr. Muirhead's persuasive argument for the establishment of a separate board for the administration of higher education in the District. The President's Committee considers this provision of the pending bill not only admirable but a necessary condition for the proper development and functioning of the public colleges. May I say, Mr. Chairman, that this statement was drafted and sent to the members of the committee with request for changes or concurrence. All except two members who were not available have replied supporting the statement as well as the committee's report, and I am confident that any of the members of the committee would welcome an opportunity to testify if you should wish to have their testimony on this bill. THE CASE FOR THE COLLEGES The case for the establishment of the public colleges is made in the report to the President and has been summarized for you so well this morning that I need add but little. The case seems to me unassailable whether viewed as a matter of simple equity in opening to residents of the District opportunities comparable to those found in all States and all major cities of the Nation, or in terms of the larger national interest in the improvement of education generally. Even the magnificent letter on education that has been guided Congress by the chairman of this subcommittee in a sense is not fully available to residents of the District unless these colleges are created. The establishment of these colleges would complement the existing provisions for higher education and extend the use of the magnificent cultural and educational resources represented by Washington's libraries, museums, Government agencies, and other national and international organizations. They would offer an opportunity to contribute to the desperately needed knowledge of how to free the creative powers and overcome the adverse effects of meager cultural and educational environments. In the biennial report of the president of Brooklyn College to the board of higher education of the city of New York for the years 196365, President Gideonse affirmed one role of the public college in the life of the city and Nation in these words: Brooklyn College was established-like City College more than a century agoto afford equality of educational opportunity to the "disadvantaged" and a survey of our alumni who are now established in the top ranks of the country's and the city's academic, professional, and artistic life would immediately confirm the fact that they would never have passed the hurdle of the baccalaureate degree if a "free" college education had not been made available by the city of New York. I have no doubt that the public community college and the public college of arts and sciences in the District can play a similar role in the development of talent as well as contributing in other ways to the great goals toward which the Nation is pressing. Therefore, on behalf of the President's Committee, I urge the prompt enactment of the legislation to establish these two colleges in the District of Columbia. Senator MORSE. Dr. Chase, the committee is greatly indebted to you. I thank you very much. Senator Kennedy, do you have some questions? Senator KENNEDY. I do, but if I may, these might be some of the matters already covered. If they are in the record I will not pursue it. Senator MORSE. Go right ahead. Senator KENNEDY. Perhaps you do not have all of the figures and maybe we would have to obtain them from some other witnesses, but how many high school graduates are there in the District of Columbia each year? Dr. CHASE. Approximately 7,000 a year, I believe. Senator KENNEDY. And how many of them go on to college? Dr. HANSEN. Mr. Chairman? Senator MORSE. Dr. Hansen? Dr. HANSEN. I wonder if I might supply an answer, if you will pardon my doing so. Senator MORSE. Why don't you come up to the witness table, please? Dr. CHASE. I am delighted to have these questions answered by a competent witness. Dr. HANSEN. I am not competent at all but we happen to have command of these figures. Senator MORSE. Please take the witness chair and answer Senator Kennedy's question and give the statistics. Dr. HANSEN. I am sorry to intrude in this manner. The number of graduates is 4,500 annually on the average and our most recent report of continuation beyond graduation into higher education is 56 percent full or part time. Senator KENNEDY. That go on to a higher education? Dr. HANSEN. Going on to higher education or into post-high-school education of various kinds such as nursing, and business colleges, and so on. Senator KENNEDY. What percentage-how many start in the ninth grade? Do you have that figure? Dr. HANSEN. Yes, I have that Senator KENNEDY. Just bring up the point that the chairman made of the numbers of those who drop out. Dr. HANSEN. In the 9th grade in 1963, which I think would be the year comparable with 1965-66, 12th grade, the 9th-grade enrollment was 7,245. Senator KENNEDY. And then how many finished the 12th grade? How many graduated? Dr. HANSEN. The corresponding year, which is the current 12thgrade class, has an enrollment of 4,807 which is about 66 percent of the corresponding 9th grade. Senator KENNEDY. So, 40 percent have dropped out already? Dr. HANSEN. Yes; compared with the ninth grade. Senator KENNEDY. How many do you expect drop out and don't finish the 12th grade once they begin? What is your experience? Dr. HANSEN. The dropout rate at this level is slight; I am not sure I can give you the exact evidence in relation to the ninth grade. Senator KENNEDY. No; what I am thinking of is, how many of the ones that started the 12th grade expected to graduate? Dr. HANSEN. I do not have that. Senator KENNEDY. How many did you have starting the 12th grade; 4,600 did you say? Dr. HANSEN. Yes. The actual figure is 4,807. Senator KENNEDY. And you do not know how many of those finish, yet? Dr. HANSEN. If you will just bear with me a moment. Senator KENNEDY. I do not want to take the committee's time. Dr. HANSEN. I may have it here, I just have to check it through. I am afraid, Mr. Kennedy, I would have to get that information. Senator MORSE. Dr. Hansen, will you submit the figure for the record? Dr. HANSEN. I will be happy to. (The information requested follows:) Number of pupils in the 12th grade in October, the number of graduates, and the percentage of graduates in the District of Columbia public schools for the academic years 1960–61 to 1964-65 Senator KENNEDY. How many go on, the 4,600? Dr. HANSEN. That is roughly it. Senator KENNEDY. Say, around that figure, what percentage of those go on then to college? Dr. HANSEN. The last report for 1964 graduating classes, 56 percent, into college or other institutions of post-high-school type. Senator KENNEDY. Fifty-six percent? Dr. HANSEN. Of the graduating class. Senator KENNEDY. Does that vary according to your schools; for instance, Dunbar, do you have the figures for individual schools? Dr. HANSEN. I do not have the figures here, but the answer is that there is a variation percentage, ranging Senator MORSE. Supply the figures per school. Dr. HANSEN. We can supply that. (Information requested follows:) Number of graduates, number of college enrollees, and percentage of graduates attending four-year college, for the senior high schools of the District of Columbia for the year 1965 NOTE. A total of 56 percent of the graduates of the District of Columbia senior high schools in June 1965 continued their education beyond the 12th grade. Of this 56 percent a total of 39 percent enrolled in a 4-year college in September 1965. Senator KENNEDY. The schools of the lower economic sections of the city, is the percentage of those who go on much lower? Dr. HANSEN. Much lower. Senator KENNEDY. Would you have any idea as to a school such as Dunbar? Dr. HANSEN. Without reference to Dunbar, the range might be something like 20 percent to 85 to 87 percent. Senator KENNEDY. Is one of the major reasons that the children do not go on to college the financial problems? Do we have when you made your study Mr. MUIRHEAD. May I respond to that, Mr. Kennedy, and respond to your question in general, if I may? Superintendent Hansen, of course, has pointed out that 56 percent of the high school graduates go on. The information that we have nationwide indicates that about 75 percent of ninth graders stay on to graduate. The comparable figure for the District is about 66 percent. Senator KENNEDY. That's higher than Dr. Hansen just gave. Mr. MUIRHEAD. The point I would like to make, and I am sure Dr. Hansen joins me in making it, is that the percentage of those going on to college of the high school graduates from the District is in itself almost misleading in that many, many of the young people in the District of Columbia schools, as is true in schools in similar situations throughout the country, drop out of school largely because there is not the hope that they can go on to college. When they reach the age when they can drop out, and hopefully get a job, they do so. I repeat, in the District of Columbia, only about 66 percent of the ninth graders stay on to graduate. Now, I think that has to be put into the context of what happens in other places throughout the country. The situation is that the District of Columbia finds itself very low on the totem pole in comparison with the other States. There are only five States in the Union that have a smaller per |