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.

A community college is more, of course, than an investment in people. It is 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.

I think this would slow down the growth and hamper both institutions. Both these institutions are large enough in size so you can get the economy of interchanging of personnel on the individual campuses without having to put them all together.

If institutions as different as the two under consideration cannot operate satisfactorily on one location nor under one single controlling agency, I would suggest a central coordinating agency for both institutions.

Each institution should have its own operating board free to develop the individual character of each of the institutions, with the coordinating agency setting broad policies that would affect both institutions. I think that is the heart of what I want to say.

Senator MORSE. Your suggestions are very helpful. In regard to the administrative problems, those are the suggestions I want to get into this hearing record. Again I am not ready for any final decision on the matter. I do not know what the Virginia system is, but in a good many States, my State being an example, we have a State board of higher education. It has overall jurisdiction of all higher education in the State. But we have many institutions under it that perform various special services of the community colleges. You have your vocational training institutes. You have your 4-year college, and it is claimed that as a result of that centralization of top administrative authority, there is great saving in cost and there is also improved efficiency in the academic level by interchanges among the institutions, where they are not so far apart, where you can have modern travel, where you can have a special well-known professor in some field that can lecture one day at institution A and the next day at institution B and the next day at institution C and give to all the students the benefit of his special training.

We are also working out, and I do not think we have scratched the surface of it yet, the use of our various technical aids in education, television, films, and use of the radio. All I suggested earlier this morning is that we ought to keep in mind that wherever we can bring about some saving and at the same time not pay a price for it academically that is fine.

I don't know what the best administrative setup for the District of Columbia is. I am not qualified to say. But you people working in the field are, and I think this kind of information that you are giving is excellent. I hope you will follow it with a memorandum to the committee. The staff may call upon you for assistance. I want to get the best administrative setup that we can have.

I want to thank you very much.

Mr. MCKEE. We will be pleased to cooperate and give any additional help.

Senator MORSE. Our next witness will be Miss Griffith. We are delighted to have you, Miss Griffith.

STATEMENT OF ELIZABETH D. GRIFFITH, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA EDUCATION ASSOCIATION

Miss GRIFFITH. Thank you, Senator Morse.

We want to thank you for holding these hearings on this important legislation, and I would like to submit my statement for the record and then briefly comment upon it.

The District of Columbia Education Association strongly urges that the members of this committee and the 89th Congress act favorably on a measure to authorize the establishment of 2-year community junior college and a 4-year liberal arts college to provide higher education at a nominal cost for the young people of the District of Columbia.

Low tuition costs in State colleges and universities are available to young people living outside of the District of Columbia. It has been noted that the annual tuition charge for private colleges within the District of Columbia is more than $1,000. Seniors from four high schools stated that they could not afford to pay the $525 annual tuition charged by Howard University. The prohibitive cost of education in the established colleges in the Washington area presents a barrier to many of our city's youth.

The present colleges and universities in Washington, D.C., also have student bodies which are national and international in scope and all of these institutions are overcrowded. These institutions, therefore, cannot meet the local needs of our high school graduates by enrolling all who are eligible to attend. The District of Columbia needs better facilities for higher education to meet the increasing demand. A 2-year community junior college and a 4-year liberal arts college are needed now to insure that all eligible young people may obtain the type of education which will insure a future free from economic need for themselves and to provide skilled employees and professionally competent personnel for our city and Nation.

We desire to end the waste of human potential in Washington, D.C. President Johnson stated that

Higher education should be made a universal opportunity for all young people— the Nation's Capital should set the pace, not lag behind. The Congress has abundantly demonstrated its concern with education and I hope that the proprosed bill will receive its prompt and favorable consideration.

The Education Committee of the District of Columbia Education Association has studied S. 293 and S. 1612. It made recommendations which were endorsed by the executive committee of this association. It was recommended that S. 293 be preferred, with the following suggested amendments:

S. 293, section 3(a), page 3, line 7: change "not less than five" to "all", and at the end of the sentence on page 3, line 9, delete the period, and add:

Provided further, That no member shall be a member of the administrative staff or of the faculty of any other institution of higher education located in the District of Columbia.

Amend section 3(b), page 4, lines 5, 6 by changing "not less than four", to "all", and add at the end of the sentence, line 8:

Provided further, That no member shall be a member of the administrative staff or of the faculty of any other institution of higher education located in the District of Columbia.

Section 4(a), page 5, line 11, following the word "Education", add: "and not more than one year following the date of approval of this Act."

S. 293, section 4(a), page 5, line 19, change period to a comma, and

add: