University, is as old as the American Constitution. George Washton and Howard Universities have been here for more than a century. These fine universities are overcrowded and and short of money, even with the fees they charge.

They have a backlog of requests for admissions, and the creation of this public university and this community college will aid in caring for the explosion in higher education of the tens of thousands now marching toward college doors.

This community needs these five fine universities.

In per capita public expenditures on higher education the District ranked dead last in the Nation, with an average of $2.26. This compares with the national average of $28.87 for 1963-64. Of all the 50 States and the District of Columbia only the District fails to offer its young people an opportunity to attend a publicly supported institution offering a liberal education through the bachelor's degree level. Studies by the Committee appointed by President Kennedy in 1963 showed that 55 percent of the seniors in the District's public high schools would be interested in a local public community college. Seventy-two percent indicated they would be interested if they were not otherwise accepted by the college or university of their choice. The Committee envisaged an opening class of 1,400 students during the early years of college.

That was 1963, Mr. Chairman. I should think those figures would be too low now, just as the enrollment last fall of approximately 6 million students in the institutions of higher learning in America were higher than any prediction that had been made.

The only public facility for higher education in the District-the District of Columbia Teachers College-is woefully inadequate. The third floor had been condemned as a fire hazard. In recent years the enrollment has dropped seriously; the number of graduates declined from 123 to 69 between 1958 and 1963, despite the ever-increasing need for teachers.

The members of this committee are well aware of the sharply increasing need for education in our society. I hope that the few facts that I have cited here will indicate some of the imperative needs for public higher education in the District today. I heartily endorse the proposals before this committee to establish such institutions.

In this connection, I have one suggestion to make. In my readings of S. 293 and S. 1612 I see no reference to the cost of instruction to the student. This may be an error but upon my examination I did not see that. I assume the cost is intended to be as low as possible, but this is nowhere indicated in the bill. I wonder whether the committee would consider an amendment to the bill clearly indicating that it is the intent of Congress that the educational opportunity provided under this bill shall be low cost, for otherwise the effect of this bill will be greatly diluted.

Perhaps the tuition should be limited to $100 per year. That is a limit in a number of States, in the State institutions of higher learning. I personally think that tuition should be free in the public community college, as it is in junior colleges in California.

Tuition is free through the junior college level in California today with the result that that State has enrolled in the junior colleges in the State of California 45 percent of all the students attending junior college in America today.

In the District of Columbia, this very great community, we should have a public junior college system here with tuition free, at least through the second year of work. We owe it to the country. We should not be the most backward area. Congress rules the District of Columbia. It should not be the most backward educationally in the Nation. It should be leading. We ought to catch up with California.

I should also like to suggest that authority be given for free tuition for some students and for scholarship aid for others in the 4-year college. One of the purposes of this bill, as I see it, is to give students from low-income families a chance to attend college. I believe that the amendments I have suggested here are necessary to accomplish that end.

If the committee is interested in the proposals I have set forth, I would be happy to have my staff meet with the committee staff to work out suitable language.

Again, Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank the committee for allowing me to appear here today. I fully endorse the proposals to establish public institutions of higher learning in the District of Columbia and appreciate the opportunity to offer the few suggestions which I believe would be in the best interests of accomplishing the objectives of this legislation. Such institutions are long overdue in the District of Columbia.

Senator MORSE. I am very proud to have your contribution to this hearing. After we build up part of the body of the hearing record in this case I would like to have our staff work with your staff in connection with the suggestions that you make.

Thank you very much.

I am going to put in the hearing record at this point a statement of a member of my subcommittee, Senator Prouty of Vermont, who could not be here, but who wanted to make a statement. He is another Member of the Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee who has given me support at all times in regard to the work of this committee.

I would like to insert Senator Prouty's statement in the hearing record. I fully expected his support and we have his support for legislation in this field. I thank him.

(The statement referred to follows:)

STATEMENT BY SENATOR WINSTON L. PROUTY OF VERMONT RE S. 293 AND S. 1612

Mr. Chairman, I can imagine few pieces of legislation as vital to the growth and development of the District of Columbia as these bills, S. 293, of which I am a cosponsor, and S. 1612.

The roots of most of the important problems of the District can be traced directly to a lack of higher educational opportunities for the thousands who graduate from our high schools annually.

Washington is one of the last highly developed urban areas without some public facility for higher education in the liberal arts. It is one of the few highly populated urban areas without a truly community college. Accordingly, Mr. Chairman, it sets out to train our young for life in the space age with intellectual weapons of the Middle Ages.

Of the multifarious problems plaguing the District, many are traceable to the lack of a feeling of community, a sentiment that is not present, and cannot be present in a vacuum-that cannot exist in an area devoid of adequate public facilities for interesting and educating our young people.

In almost every major metropolis there are one or more public colleges serving as focal points-as cores of community life and activity. Around these facili

ties, institutions of art and entertainment abound. The communities develop pride and interest in the opportunities available "across the backyard."

Where, as here, no such public facilities are provided, the community attains no identity-young energies find no intellectual outlet and the community remains essentially less of an organized and interested entity, drained of leadership, vibrance, and vitality.

Accordingly, Mr. Chairman, I feel that enactment of public higher education legislation for the District of Columbia be essential-not only for the students to whom broad new intellectual vistas will emerge but for the community at large whose needs to find a common hearth must be served.

Senator MORSE. Dr. Chase, if you will bear with me a moment longer I would also like to have Senator Kennedy make a statement at this time. Senator Kennedy is a member of my Subcommittee on Education of the Senate Labor and Public Welfare Committee. He never fails to give support to the objectives of sound legislation, legislation nationally and for the District of Columbia.

I know of no one who has been in the Senate a shorter period of time than Senator Kennedy who has proved himself a more valuable member of the Senate District Committee.

STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT F. KENNEDY, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK

Senator KENNEDY. Thank you, and I must confess I listened to what you had to say, I kept my ears open and I appreciate it.

I just want to say how important I believe the legislation we are considering today is to the people, particularly the young people of the District of Columbia. The public education situation in the District is a national disgrace. At a time when 50 States are expending public higher educational facilities at a rapid rate, the District has one tiny and antiquated deteriorating teachers college.

Hundreds of boys and girls graduate from the District's high schools each year and simply have no place to go to college. I spoke at Western High School on Friday, Mr. Chairman, and I asked the group there how many of them wanted, or expected to go, would like to go on to college. I would think at least 85 percent of them raised their hands.

One of the first questions I received was, if we want to go on to college where can we go to college? What are you going to do about higher education in the District of Columbia?

Some of the residents, of course, have the financial resources to go to a privately endowed university or pay the resident fees. Others can get scholarship loans and go to a privately endowed college on that basis. There are hundreds of others each year who do not have the financial resources to go to college and are not qualified for a scholarship or loan. For them the educational system of the District is a hoax, a hoax which by 1970 will bar them from 70 percent of the Nation's jobs, because their education stopped at the 12th grade.

For some of these young people 2-year community college education would be appropriate; for others a 4-year liberal arts program would be in order; but neither of these opportunities exist in a public_college in the District. Beyond the hundreds of District high school graduates each year who are visibly denied a higher education there are hundreds more who do not finish high school but may have stayed in school if they had some hope of going on to college.

Our shame is their tragedy as well. Every State in the Nation provides some kind of public higher education opportunities for those of its residents who choose it, but not the District of Columbia. Every State legislature in the country has, at least to some extent, recognized its obligation to provide a higher education for the young people of its State, but the Congress of the United States has done nothing. Therefore, it is time that we act.

I have no strong preference about the two bills before us, both would establish a 2-year community college and a 4-year liberal arts college. We will hear testimony about the differences between the two bills, we want to consider the resolutions of the differences with care. What is of overriding importance is that we enact legislation this year to bring higher education to the District of Columbia, we have been derelict in our responsibility for far too long and I look forward to following the leadership of my chairman in this committee in our efforts to enact a meaningful bill in this important field.

Thank you.

Senator MORSE. Senator Kennedy, I want to thank you very much. I think that your support of the objectives of this legislation is a source of great strength to the passage of this legislation. It fills me with great confidence and, in fact, puts me in the position where I am willing to predict that we are going to pass some legislation. As to the differences between the two bills I do not think that there are any differences that cannot be ironed out into a final composite bill that will resolve differences on the basis of the facts and I want to thank you very, very much for this statement.

Now, Dr. Chase, before I let you proceed I want you to know that I am sending to you and to the members of the President's Special Committee that brought forth this very valuable report to the President on public higher education in the District of Columbia, a letter of thanks and appreciation from this committee for the educational statesmanship of each one of you on that special committee. You have performed, in my judgment, a very valuable service and you have sent to the President a report that will be used by educators that are confronted with similar problems in many other parts of the United States. Publicly I want to say to you that we are saying to you, in our letter of appreciation, you have performed a very fine service for your President, for the District, and for your country, and I thank you most sincerely for it.

You may now proceed to present your testimony in your own way before this committee.

STATEMENT OF FRANCIS S. CHASE, CHAIRMAN, PRESIDENT'S COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Dr. CHASE. Mr. Chairman and members of the Subcommittee on Public Health, Education, Welfare, and Safety, it is a great privilege to me to appear before this committee, and I appreciate the words of the chairman with regard to the Committee's report. I will say, also, it was a great satisfaction to serve on that Committee and to present the report that we presented.

Dr. Muirhead has spoken on behalf of the President. I have listened to his statement and to the statement of this subcommittee, which seems to me in every respect just and wise in the best sense of those much overused terms. In fact, the case for the bill could not be better put. I have also listened with care to the statement made by the other members of the subcommittee and the other Senators testifying, and I am going to try to avoid unnecessary repetition of what has been said and what appears in the report. I do so on behalf of the Committee, which was set up at the request of President Kennedy and reappointed by President Johnson to recommend to the President what should be done about public higher education in the District of Columbia.

The bill before you incorporates the most urgent and crucial recommendations of the Committee. They are

1. The immediate creation of a comprehensive community or junior college, publicly supported, that will put within reach of all high school graduates opportunities for technical and vocational training and for general education leading both to greater personal and civic effectiveness and to further study in a 4-year college or university for those who qualify and seek it.

2. The immediate creation of a college of liberal arts and sciences, also publicly supported, authorized to confer both the baccalaureate and the master's degrees, with a special concern with teacher education (a function it should assume from the District of Columbia Teachers College) and prepared to offer specialized courses of study as need and feasibility are established.

I want to stress the complementary nature of the two colleges. On the basis of its deliberations, the President's Committee became convinced that it is important to establish as soon as feasible both of the recommended institutions of public higher education. Each of these two colleges, through the performance of its own distinctive functions, will complement and strengthen the other in making its essential contributions to higher education in the District of Columbia and the Nation. Moreover, these public colleges will supplement the work of the nonpublic institutions of higher education allowing each to identify and concentrate on those programs and functions to which it is highly committed. The combination of public and privately supported colleges and universities offers the hope of making the District of Columbia one of the Nation's most distinguished and productive centers of higher education.

And I think the people of the United States should not wish and do not wish it to be any different.

The public college of arts and sciences will meet the needs for liberal education and lay the foundation for advanced graduate and professional study, thus opening careers in the professions, in college and university teaching, and in the public service, to talented residents of the District and metropolitan area, for whom attendance at private institutions or institutions outside of the District would not be feasible.

The community college will have its own important functions to be performed chiefly for District residents who have completed high school or passed the usual age of high school attendance and who wish types of post-high-school education difficult to provide in an academi