And what about the existing educational institutions at the college level and beyond? There were five well-esteemed and growing universities within the limits of the District-American, Catholic, Georgetown, George Washington, Howard. I knew they had recently established a consortium to provide a unified approach to some of their common problems-couldn't they collectively or individually meet whatever need existed? And what would be their attitude toward the establishment of a publicly supported college system in their midst? Lastly, with the recent closing of the 1st session of the 89th Congress-the "education Congress"-hadn't most of the needs in this area been met or at least well attacked by legislation enacted within the past 12 months-did the need, even if it had been real until this year, still exist?

A second major question raised in my mind was whether or not the issue of public education was a valid one for church participation. Clearly, education was a great secular issue of far-reaching implications, and there were a number of good reasons why individual citizens might be urged to support this proposal, assuming that the need existed, such as: the place of the District in shaping the national image before the world; the optimum use of human resources; upgrading the Nation's "human capital;" and cutting the crime rate. But was it a proper issue for the church to engage one on which the council should take a formal position?

After all, there was mounting evidence that auto seat belts save lives and thereby prevent much human suffering and loss; yet the institute had declined to take a position on proposed legislation to make them compulsory, on the ground that there was not a valid moral issue involved. Was providing higher education to those who had no easy access to it a real moral issue on which the council should take a stand, and, if so, could it claim a high enough priority on a long list to justify any concentrated expenditure at this time of the council's always limited resources?

These were the questions which were foremost in my mind as I set out to explore this issue, and they have remained at the center of my thinking as I have gotten deeper into it during recent weeks, with the limited time I have had to devote to it. The remainder of this report will consist of factual information and my conclusions, which I submit for the consideration of the governing committee and, if the governing committee should so decide, of the board of directors of the council.

II. CURRENT STATUS OF THE PROPOSAL

In investigating these issues I quickly learned that whether the problem was real or not, it was one which had been competently and thoroughly investigated. Similar proposals had been suggested and considered by various groups and organizations, including congressional committees, since at least 1957. In September 1963 President Kennedy appointed a seven-member committee of impressive qualifications to study the specific question involved here the need for a public system of higher education in the District of Columbia. This committee made a thorough and detailed investigation of the issue, including public meetings, private discussions with many interested parties and organizations, and extensive staff studies of specific problems involved. Because my report will refer often to the report of this committee, I believe it is pertinent to list here the names and positions of its members:

Dr. Francis S. Chase, chairman, dean, Graduate School of Education, University of Chicago.

Dr. James R. Killian, Jr., chairman of the corporation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. Thomas R. McConnell, chairman, Center for Study of Higher Education, University of California (Berkeley).

Mrs. Agnes Meyer, civic leader and author, Washington, D.C.

Dr. Samuel M. Nabrit, president, Texas Southern University.

Dr. George N. Shuster, former president, Hunter College, assistant to the president, University of Notre Dame.

Dr. Jerome B. Wiesner, former director, office of science and technology, dean of science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. James H. Case, Jr., executive director.

In June 1964 this committee unanimously recommended to President Johnson: 1. The immediate creation of a comprehensive, publicly supported, community (or junior) college;

2. The immediate creation of a college of liberal arts and sciences, also publicly supported, authorized to confer both the baccalaureate and master's degrees, and to absorb the existing District of Columbia Teachers College. The committee also recommended a system of noncompetitive scholarships for local graduates of community colleges and the early development in the District of a center or centers for high-level graduate and post-doctoral studies; these latter proposals will not be discussed here.

On March 18, 1965, President Johnson sent to Congress H.R. 7395, a bill to establish a Board of Higher Education to plan, establish, organize and operate a public community college and a public college of arts and sciences in the District of Columbia, and for other purposes. This bill would establish a Board of Higher Education of 9 to 15 members (with a resident majority) to be appointed by the Commissioners of the District of Columbia. The board would be authorized to develop detailed plans for and to establish, organize and operate in the District of Columbia: (1) a public college, offering a program in the arts and sciences up through the master's degree, and (2) a public community college, including programs of vocational study, leading to the associate of arts degree. A number of local organizations have pledged their support to this legislation, and the District of Columbia Citizens for Better Public Education, Inc., has been leading this support. The consortium of local universities has yet to determine a public position on the matter, but at least one of the university presidents and the head of the local Catholic women's college have announced their full support, and there is reason to hope the leadership of the other universities will soon recognize the urgency of the need.

No hearings have been held on H.R. 7395 to date, but it is expected that both Houses of Congress will hold hearings early in the next session.

III. REPORT ON THE ISSUES

A. The need for the community college

The report of the President's Committee points out the general need of our society, in an age of increasing technology, for increasingly higher skills and training and the growing acute shortage of skilled craftsmen and technicians of all kinds. Experience throughout the country has proven the growing effectiveness and popularity of the 2-year community college as the ideal mechanism to solve this problem. With the flexibility which it offers, it can not only satisfy the technological need but also give sufficient attention to liberal educational requirements to prepare its graduates for well-rounded community participation. Similarly, the Committee noted the decreasing opportunities for young people with limited educational achievements: "We are building massive problems for the future in welfare, unemployment, poverty, and crime-unless we provide a maximum of opportunity for the youth of today to achieve the highest level of education of which they are capable." This view is supported by the Skill Survey of the Washington Metropolitan Area, prepared in 1963 by the U.S. Employment Service for the District of Columbia, which stated, "The labor market cannot absorb any increase in unskilled labor," and added, "the more education and training a young person has, the better job he can expect to get. Some training past the high school level is desired by most employers."

In a more definitive vein Roscoe Drummond summed up the present situation in his syndicated column of December 5 with the comment:

"For the first time since the industrial revolution there are more jobs in the United States looking for workers than there are workers to fill them ***. "What we now have in the United States, on the basis of the latest studies, is this:

"Nearly 3 million jobs seeking and searching for qualified workers.

"Nearly 3 million unemployed, most of whom are not qualified-do not have the work skills to take the jobs that are open."

This is the gap which the community college is ideally equipped to fill, and it is a deficiency which is going to become increasingly serious in the Washington area if such an institution is not established immediately.

In defining the nature of the community college whose establishment it was supporting, the report listed its purposes, which included training for responsible citizenship, enrichment of the personal lives of the students, adult education, and preparation of students for further university education. The Committee further commented, "While technical education, broadly conceived, is a unique function of the proposed community college, the Committee strongly believes that it should be a comprehensive, not a technical institute."

Assuming the establishing of the type of institution it envisioned, with tuition and fees maintained at a nominal level for District residents, the Committee summed up its studies of the need in the following terms:

"The studies by the Committee establish that there will be no lack of applicants for admission. For example, answers to a questionnaire addressed in 1962 to seniors in the District's public high schools indicated that more than 55 percent (1,782 students) would be interested in a local public community college if one were available. A still larger percentage-72, or 2,350 students-indicated that in the event they were not accepted for admission to the college or university of their choice, they would apply for admission to a public community college if it existed. Answers to the Committee's questionnaire in January 1964 indicated that about 720 of the seniors who do not plan to continue their education would change their plans and attend a public community college if one were available. Taking everything into account, the Committee envisages an annual entering class of about 1,400 students during the early years of the community college. The number will grow steadily."

These estimates are probably conservative. There would be a number of nonresident students willing and anxious to pay reasonable tuition fees for the opportunity the college would present. As the report notes, there is a need among the District's suburban neighbors especially in Virginia-for educational services of the type the college would offer. A recent article in the Reader's Digest entitled, "Junior Colleges-Hope For the Future," commented:

"The United States has 710 junior colleges, with 20 to 30 new ones opening each year. As soon as the new schools open, they are swamped with applications for admission. For example, Florida's Miami-Dade Junior College, opened in 1960, now has 14,000 students. Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland, which started in 1963, expects an enrollment of 8,500 this fall."

B. The need for a college of liberal arts and sciences

The present District of Columbia Teachers College has supplied a third of all the public school teachers in the District, some 1,673 teachers during 1963. It is, nevertheless, grossly inadequate to the need. Its "campus" consists of two buildings more than a half-century old separated by a mile of slum and semislum area of the District. Their third floors presently condemned as a fire hazard and hence unusable, these two buildings housed the two segregated Wilson and Minor Teachers Colleges prior to their merger into the present institution in 1955 and were originally built for the two normal schools which preceded them from 1930 back to the years before World War I.

These facilities are now incredibly inadequate, and in recent years enrollment has declined seriously. The number of graduates dropped 44 percent-from 123 to 69-between 1958 and 1963, despite the burgeoning need for teachers. In 1962 the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education announced that it was withdrawing accreditation from the college because "the prospects of improving the facilities, maintaining a competent faculty, and attracting an able student body were not good enough to justify its continuation"-and this is the only publicly supported institution of higher learning in the Nation's Capital. The Committee recommended that District of Columbia Teachers College be merged immediately with the new 4-year college upon its establishment.

Would there be students available for such a liberal arts college? After thorough study, including a 10-percent sample of the June 1964 graduating class of District of Columbia residents, the Committee stated:

"The Committee concludes, therefore, that the college of arts and sciences could be expected, even at the outset, to meet the need and desire for higher education of at least 600 District secondary school graduates each year who are 'college-able' but who can afford to continue in school only in a publicly supported institution. The Committee is also strongly convinced, as it has already stated, that denials of educational opportunity of this magnitude must not be allowed to continue."

The Committee also considered two other alternatives, the granting of scholarships to District residents to attend institutions already in existence and the expansion of Howard University to absorb the increased load. It concluded that neither of these proposals was satisfactory, the second because Howard considers its mission to be national in scope and is increasingly expanding its mission to contribute to the education of foreign students, particularly from the countries of Africa and Southeast Asia.

I see no reason and have no basis for challenging the Committee's facts, reasoning or conclusions. The need could hardly be more real or more self-evident, and I suspect that 10 years from now the Committee's report will appear extremely conservative.

C. The adequacy of existing higher educational resources

The District has remarkable intellectual, human and cultural resources merely by dint of its being the National Capital and 1 of the Nation's 10 largest cities. It also has the five universities mentioned previously and District of Columbia Teachers College. Yet the President's Committee was moved to comment:

"All other American cities of the size and importance of the District-and virtually every European capital-have more extensive programs of graduate, professional and postdoctoral study and research than are available in the Capital of the United States. All our major cities have provisions for the education of teachers greatly superior to those found here. And all of them also have a wider range of opportunities for post high school education, both vocational and general."

Nevertheless, at the undergraduate level the District does appear to be particularly well endowed. The Committee acknowledged this wealth and summarized its irrelevance to the present problem in four brief sentences:

"The District has an impressive array of privately controlled post high school educational institutions. Its resources in this respect are exceeded in scope and diversity by only a few cities in the Nation. For valid reasons, however, none of the five universities in the District addresses itself primarily to District residents. None of them is in a position to extend any tuition advantages to residents of the District, and each feels itself to have a national, rather than a local mission."

As mentioned previously, even Howard, which with its lower student costs attracted, from 1960 through 1963, 63 percent of all District public school graduates who entered District universities, considers its major mission to be national in scope and more recently international.

How obsolete and inadequate the District's higher education facilities and program are was given emphasis by a recent article in U.S. News & World Report of May 17, 1965, which reported that in 1930 an eighth-grade education perpared a person for 58 percent of the jobs in the United States; it is estimated that by 1970 the equivalent figure will be 6 percent. In 1930, only 10 percent of all jobs required any education or training beyond the high school level; by 1970, 68 percent of all jobs will demand more than a high school education.

In 1913 the 2 buildings of D.C. Teachers College were built-a mile apart-to serve the higher educational needs of the District's 360,000 inhabitants. Fiftytwo years later, the District's population has more than doubled; the educational requirements of the economy are immensely increased; and the District is the Capital City of history's wealthiest and most powerful Nation; yet those two old buildings still stand as its only public facilities for higher education.

The extent to which young people of the District are in fact deprived of equal opportunity for a higher education shows up startlingly in the statistics on expenditures in this field. The District has a larger population than 11 of the 50 States. The following table lists the capital outlays for institutions of higher education in 1963-64 of those 11 States, along with Maryland, Virginia, and the District:

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, "Governmental Finances in 1963-64." Nor, unhappily, does the District fare any better in a relative listing of the total per capita expenditures on (public) higher education of the individual States. The national average of such expenditures was $28.87 in 1963-64; Massachusetts with its plethora of well-endowed private colleges and universities was the second lowest, with a per capita expenditure of $9.87; 6 States spent over

$50, and the 11 small-population States ranged from Alaska's high of $94.69 to New Hampshire's low of $23.71. The District of Columbia spent $2.26:

In summary, two main points emerge from any examination of these facts: First, of the 50 States and the District of Columbia only the District fails to offer its young people the opportunity to attend a publicly supported institution offering a liberal education at least through the baccalaureate degree. And, secondly, the District desperately needs a totally new educational setting for the preparation of teachers for its public school system.

D. Effect of the Higher Education Act of 1965

In discussing the educational needs of the District, at least passing consideration must be given to the Higher Education Act of 1965. This legislation has been highly and justly praised as a momentous step forward in the educational history of the United States. It will meet many of the widely felt deficiencies of the country's existing system of higher education.

At the same time, it is self-evident that even this legislation cannot be a cureall for every existing need. Specifically, the act comprises a Federal program directed to educational needs which are broadly evident on a nationwide basis. It was framed to supplement the relatively adequate and rapidly expanding existing systems of higher education in the 50 States across the Nation, and although it included the District of Columbia, it made no attempt to address the District's special deficiencies. Title IV of the act was especially designed to assist needy but worthy students to gain access to those existing systems of education by making available a broad program of loans and scholarships.

The act was not designed to provide the basis for an entire public-private system of education where many of the basic components of such a system were missing, as in the District of Columbia. While it will make it possible for an exceptional few of the graduates of the District of Columbia public high schools to continue their education where this would otherwise have been impossible, it leaves a serious void in the educational opportunities available to the great majority of these graduates. Few of the District of Columbia students who most need assistance can afford to go away to school, and the local universities have neither the facilities, nor the inclination to satisfy this local need. As described previously, they are increasingly emphasizing a program of geographical diversification in their selection of students for admission, and their existing and planned capacities will be fully taxed in serving their national and international commitments.

IV. IS THIS A PROPER ISSUE FOR THE COUNCIL OF CHURCHES?

In etermining whether this issue is one on which it is proper for the Council of Churches of Greater Washington to take a position, it is perhaps adequate to rephrase the question in the light of the previous discussion: Is it morally defensible to deny the youth of the District of Columbia equal access to higher educational opportunities, when such opportunities are available to the youth of every State in the Union?

In his special message on education in 1962, President John F. Kennedy defined education as "both the foundation and the unifying force of our democratic way of life *** the mainspring of our economic and social progress" and added, "It is the highest expression of achievement in our society, ennobling and enriching human life." In a society where inadequate educational opportunity can increasingly deny to the underprivileged any real opportunity for self-improvement and even the hope of becoming participating and contributing members of that society, can the church, having noted the need, pass by on the other side? The issue, fortunately, is no longer debatable for the Council of Churches, because the statements of basic policy included in the "Strategy for Working on the Problems of Metropolitan Washington" approved by the Governing Council of the Urban Institute on January 5, 1965, and by the board of directors of the