AUTHORIZATION OF DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PUBLIC LIBERAL ARTS AND JUNIOR COLLEGES

(S. 293 and S. 1612)

TUESDAY, MARCH 15, 1966

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HEALTH, EDUCATION,

WELFARE, AND SAFETY OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA,

Washington, D.C.

The subcommittee met at 9 a.m., pursuant to recess, in room 6226, New Senate Office Building, Senator Wayne Morse (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Senator Morse.

Also present: Chester H. Smith, staff director; Fred L. McIntyre, counsel; Richard E. Judd, professional staff member.

Senator MORSE. The hearing will come to order.

We are honored to have as our first two witnesses Commissioner Tobriner and Commissioner Duke. You gentlemen may take the witness stand. It is always a pleasure for me to have any and all of you before me.

STATEMENT OF WALTER N. TOBRINER, PRESIDENT, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS; ACCOMPANIED BY BRIG. GEN. C. M. DUKE, ENGINEER COMMISSIONER, AND SCHUYLER LOWE, DIRECTOR, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA DEPARTMENT OF GENERAL ADMINISTRATION

Mr. TOBRINER. In his recent message on the District of Columbia Budget, President Johnson stated

that the District can and should be an example of the best among our urban communities, but in many ways the District continues to fall short of that goal.

The way to educational equality and eventually to excellence for the District of Columbia was outlined in 1964 by the President's Committee on Public Higher Education. Approval of legislation which this committee is considering today, would mean a large, tangible step toward the system of higher public education which the President's Committee identified as a basic educational necessity for the District and every modern urban community. The Commissioners fully support the recommendations of the President's Committee.

The Commissioners favor the principles of both bills being considered by this committee, but support the administration bill (S. 1612)

because it has a more effective and functional relationship between the District Commissioners and the proposed Board of Higher Education. This need has been highlighted and accentuated by the number, complexity, and scope of new Federal grant programs enacted by the Congress. Increasingly, the need for closer coordination of urban functions becomes paramount. The objectives of the proposed Demonstration Cities Act of 1966 also point up this need. The Commissioners on May 18, 1965, reported on S. 293 and on February 10, 1966, a report was offered on S. 1612.

Although we concur in the objectives of S. 293, that is, the establishment of a public college of arts and sciences and a public community college, we believe that the general concept of S. 293 fails to provide for the effective coordination of higher education needs with the many other needs for which the Commissioners have a more direct responsibility.

With regard to the judicial branch of the Government appointing members of the Board of Higher Education, it is to be noted that this practice is almost nonexistent elsewhere in the United States. The attached extract from the Education Record of October 1961 brings this out.

In the District of Columbia, Mr. Chairman, there exist several fine private institutions of higher learning. We, in Washington, can look with pride to the educational institutions that have grown and developed here-institutions that attract students from all the States in our Nation and many of the nations of the world. Yet there is a glaring deficiency in higher education in this city.

Here in our Nation's Capital, where great advances in our elementary and secondary school education are in evidence, we do not have a system of public higher education that is available to the ever-increasing numbers of young residents who cannot afford the spiraling costs of private higher education.

There is no public institution of higher learning that offers a baccalaureate degree program, and there is no public community college to provide either a general or technical educational program.

There is only an antiquated and overused facility known as the D.C. Teachers College—an institution, which within its limitations, has fulfilled its commitment over the years, and is now certainly unable to educate the growing numbers of students who seek higher education in the District of Columbia.

The plight of public higher education in the District is cast in sharp relief when compared to facilities in the six American cities which most nearly equal this city in population. With only 1 exception, each of the comparable size cities has 2 or more institutions of public higher education with an average enrollment of 11,000 students. In fact, it is easy to find smaller cities that have postsecondary public facilities. For example, San Diego with a population of only 573,000 has 4 publicly supported institutions which accommodate more than 20,000 students.

There are exactly 11 States in the country which rank below the city of Washington in the number of persons in the age group of 15 to 24 years the group from which come the young people who seek and must have the benefits of higher education.

In other words, Washington's educational needs are not only more

severe than many comparable cities but indeed more severe than the needs of some States.

It has been recognized across the Nation that the need for education requires the resources of strong public institutions as well as strong private colleges and universities. Today, more than ever, State and local governments are using their higher education facilities to meet the demands of an increasingly complex urban environment.

Mr. Chairman, recognizing that Washington has greater needs than some of the States, it is, at the same time, vastly inferior in the opportunities for higher public education which it is able to offer its citizens. In virtually all the States, not only does a city student have a choice of a minimum-cost city college, but there is also the additional choice of a State university.

And we in the District are so well aware, and as the President's Committee stated and documented in its report, the talents of many students from low-income families are now being wasted because they cannot afford the cost of higher education. Today in the District of Columbia thousands of such students are forced to accept the fact that they cannot meet the cost of higher education. A system of low-cost, public higher education will lower financial barriers and offer educational opportunities to every student who can benefit from it.

As I have stated, District of Columbia Teachers College is extended to its limits. Howard University, which is a federally sponsored national university, simply does not have the physical space for additional students. Moreover, its mission is being expanded to the education of foreign students, particularly from the underdeveloped countries.

The facilities of the private institutions are also burdened. Moreover, they are too expensive for students from most of our medium and low-income families. Tuition now averages $1,450 per year in our four private universities. Five years ago average tuition in these same schools was approximately $900.

In addition, the private universities, under the pressure of greatly increased enrollment demands, have become much more selective in their admission standards. Today the "C" student from the District has no hope of being admitted to any of the city's private universities, yet this student especially needs further education and training to equip him to earn a living in this era.

And I would like to emphasize that this is the type of student who not only needs a college education or an education beyond the high school, but he is a student who is most discriminated against both economically and other ways in respect to the obtaining of that education.

Senator MORSE. I am so glad, Commissioner, that you made this point in your statement because this is the student that is being overlooked in higher education in America today. As the pressure upon the so-called standard universities to admit students increases they just do not have adequate facilities so they raise admission standards and that means they are keeping out the "C" student.

As you heard me say before, this student is the backbone of our whole educational system. You cannot sacrifice him. You do our whole country damage by denying him a college education. You are going to create serious problems in my judgment if you do not see to

it that these students that cannot all be "A" students-who seek college work are not denied college education.

Mr. TOBRINER. Very frequently the "C" students: when offered a wider selectivity and greater counseling become the "A" student. They are late bloomers, and even as late as graduation from high school.

Senator MORSE. That is so demonstrable. In fact, I used to say if you are going to limit me to one criteria for admission to law school, granted that you give me a mind that is capable of doing satisfactory law school work, the one criterion that I would then select would be maturity.

I have seen many of these young men come to law school and have great difficulty. I have sent them back to the academic colleges for another year of two of academic college work and then they come back with another year or two of maturity and they become very able students.

I think the most dramatic example of it was following World War II when we brought into our professional schools the GI's and the superior work that they did. Many factors caused it of course, but you cannot overlook the factor of maturity. So I never sell the "C" student short and I am glad that you made this plea for him and for her this morning because we are doing irreparable damage, I think, in our educational processes by thinking we are going to solve our educational problems by constantly raising admission to our colleges.

Mr. TOBRINER. The plain facts are that the average District high school graduate does not and cannot expect to enter the private universities. In 1964 only 140 city high school graduates were admitted to the 4 private universities. All other District of Columbia graduates who made application to these private universities were denied admittance solely on the basis of academic disqualification. Their "C" average just couldn't compete with the academic qualifications of the other applicants.

The evidence is unmistakable that economic factors do indeed discourage District high school graduates from seeking higher education. The President's Committee noted that the "percentage of graduates of the several District public high schools who enter college upon graduation varies directly with the median family income of the families in the area which the school serves.

"The high schools serving areas where family income is below $5,000 have the lowest percentages ranging from 16.6 to 26.9." This statistic is even more meaningful when it is realized that 73.7 percent of the graduates from one city high school-the school which serves the area where family income is above $10,000-do go to college.

Of the students from low-income families I have just referred to, it is significant that 95 percent of the graduates who did attend a local university enrolled at Howard which, as I previously stated, is a national university. The facilities of Howard are limited and are quite incapable of coping with the present as well as the ever-expanding numbers of "collegeable" high school graduates in this city.

In recent months the Congress has enacted truly historic assistance and development programs for every level of American education. As they apply to student assistance for higher education, these programs are clearly intended to ameliorate the economic and cultural handicaps that exist in such unfortunate and classic abundance in the District of Columbia.

Title IV of the 1965 Higher Education Act, for example, establishes a scholarship program for economically deprived students in schools of higher education. Grants from $200 to $800 per academic year are now available.

Also included under this act is a system of guaranteed low-interest loans for students in community colleges and 4-year institutions. A reduced interest feature for students from low-income families makes this program particularly attractive to young District residents.

This same act provides an additional source of income through a cooperative work-study program for students from low-income families to begin or complete a higher education program in either a 2- or a 4-year institution.

The National Defense Education Act student loan program is another source of funds for students to continue or complete programs in an "institution of higher education." Amendments in 1964 and 1965 added to flexibility and made this act potentially more valuable to District students.

A separate loan program under the 1965 Vocational Student Loan Assistance Act makes loans available to students enrolled in business, trade, technical, and vocational schools. The value of these programs to the community college, which is designed to stress technical aspects, is obvious.

These are the major student assistance programs which are now nominally available to District students. But for a student actually to receive assistance under any of these programs, and I emphasize this, he must be enrolled or accepted in an institution of higher education. So student assistance programs are of no avail to a student who does not have the capacity or right to enter into an institution of higher learning. They are absolutely lost.

The pertinent fact is that each of these programs is administered by the institutions of higher education. For a student to benefit from any of these enlightened programs, there must exist educational facilities in which he can enroll. Such facilities do not exist in the District of Columbia.

At present a student from a low-income family who wishes to attend a public community college must leave the city and enroll in another State if he is to take advantage of the low-interest student loan program. Distance alone can and usually does makes such action impractical.

The increased availability of financial assistance will generate in the District of Columbia, as it will across the Nation, a greater demand for higher education. As I have stated, the facilities of Howard University are already taxed to the limit. The city's private institutions are also operating at capacity, and even with the new assistance programs, their tuition fees put them beyond the financial reach of far too many District students.

A public community college and a public liberal arts institution are basic to this city's ability to utilize adequately the educational opportunities that a wise Congress has created. If we fail to provide sufficient educational facilities, we will, in large measure for all practical purposes at least, Mr. Chairman, be repealing the Federal student assistance programs as they apply to the District of Columbia.

Mr. Chairman, up to this point I have attempted to justify the