7 H.R. 5192 embodies an important - and admittedly - compromise. For the first time in my exper expensive - ience, all the major sectors of American higher education have agreed on a set of student assistance proposals that would benefit millions of needy students enrolled in every type of institution. It is a splendid compromise and an ingenious solution. Its only possible drawback is its cost to the federal government at a time when we are struggling to achieve a balanced budget. I would not be so bold as to predict whether or not this Subcommittee will decide that the price is too high. But if it is determined that the cost must be reduced, I urge you to devise a balanced set of reductions that preserve the spirit of evenhandedness embodied in H.R. 5192. In particular, it seems to me essential that a firm link between the size of the B.E.O.G. program and the size of the S.E.O.G. program be preserved. We cannot settle for revising the former and leaving the latter to the vagaries of the budget-and-appropriations process. To use a homely metaphor, if the pie is - and I do not suggest that it is - the entire too large I would like to urge this Subcommittee to look favorably upon the creation of a National Periodicals Center. This was one of the most important recommendations of the National of one scholar advance the work of another.. If they are not readily available to practicing scholars, the pace of research and knowledge production is slowed, the academic enterprise is fragmented, duplication of effort is encouraged, and the United States inevitably falters in its effort to retain its critical advantage in the production and utilization of advanced research. It is simply the regrettable but unavoidable fact that individual scholars and university libraries cannot afford to subscribe to all the periodicals that they need. The National Periodicals Center would ease this problem. It is an entirely appropriate activity for a federal government that already spends billions to support scholarly research, and its cost is miniscule compared to the benefits it would yield. - to increase I should like to add my strong support to the proposal embodied in one form in Title VI of H.R. 5192 and rationalize our programs of support for foreign studies 9 and language development. For more years than I care to remember, I have found myself annually pleading with Presidents and their budget directors to allot funds for such purposes, and with Appropriation Committees to supply those funds. I have come to the conclusion that the principal impediment to that effort is that the programs are too small and scattered to attract the attention that their purposes demand. They positively invite budget examiners to cut or eliminate their funding, precisely because they are so small and obscure as not to seize the attention of policy makers, and because their constituencies are So specialized. It may not be necessary to train more than three graduate students a year in Urdu or six in Burmese, but it is · absolutely essential that they be trained, if this nation is not to retreat into the kind of inadvertent isolationism that results when a nation has no one who understands the cultures or can communicate in the languages of other nations. These activities will undoubtedly remain small, but if they are to remain at all they require a degree of coherence, visibility and rationality in our authorizing statutes that they have not thus far had. I also want to say a word about Title VII of H.R. 5192, which would strengthen and clarify the program of federal aid to colleges and universities for construction and renovation of academic facilities. This is important for three of one scholar advance the work of another.. If they are not readily available to practicing scholars, the pace of research and knowledge production is slowed, the academic enterprise is fragmented, duplication of effort is encouraged, and the United States inevitably falters in its effort to retain its critical advantage in the production and utilization of advanced research. It is simply the regrettable but unavoidable fact that individual scholars and university libraries cannot afford to subscribe to all the periodicals that they need. The National Periodicals Center would ease this problem. It is an entirely appropriate activity for a federal government that already spends billions to support scholarly research, and its cost is miniscule compared to the benefits it would yield. I should like to add my strong support to the proposal embodied in one form in Title VI of H.R. 5192 to increase and rationalize our programs of support for foreign studies and language development. For more years than I care to remember, I have found myself annually pleading with Presidents and their budget directors to allot funds for such purposes, and with Appropriation Committees to supply those funds. I have come to the conclusion that the principal impediment to that effort is that the programs are too small and scattered to attract the attention that their purposes demand. They positively invite budget examiners to cut or eliminate their funding, precisely because they are so small and obscure as not to seize the attention of policy makers, and because their constituencies are so specialized. It may not be necessary to train more than three graduate students a year in Urdu or six in Burmese, but it is absolutely essential that they be trained, if this nation is not to retreat into the kind of inadvertent isolationism that results when a nation has no one who understands the cultures or can communicate in the languages of other nations. These activities will undoubtedly remain small, but if they are to remain at all they require a degree of coherence, visibility and rationality in our authorizing statutes that they have not thus far had. I also want to say a word about Title VII of H.R. 5192, which would strengthen and clarify the program of federal aid to colleges and universities for construction and renovation of academic facilities. This is important for three |