2 the tuition tax credit bill would in fact have passed. As you know, Senators Ribicoff, Packwood, Roth and I have reintroduced that legislation in this Congress, and it is now pending before the Committee on Finance. S. 1101 addresses the same end through different means. The major difference is that aid would be provided in the form of federal grants rather than tax credits, and that the amount would be determined by a student's need, which is a well-established concept relating educational costs to an individual family's ability to meet those costs. I will not take the time of this Subcommittee to present a full explanation of why such aid is needed if pluralism is to survive in American education and if the alternative of sending one's children to a nongovernment school is not to be confined to wealthy families. We have long since embraced diversity, pluralism and choice in our federal education policies at the college level. I propose that we do nothing more nor less than to accept the same principle as a fundamental element of our policies toward elementary and secondary education as well. that every member of the Senate has by now decided for himself whether he agrees with it or not. My point today is quite simply that the established student aid mechanism can easily be modified to include that principle. The question is whether or not the Congress wishes to so modify it. This proposition must be dealt with as a question of social policy and ought not be obscured behind the question of whether the Supreme Court would or would not find such aid to be constitutionally permissable should the Congress choose to provide it. I happen to believe that public aid to nonpublic education is entirely within the bounds of the First Amendment and that only a flawed reading of the Constitution would lead to a different conclusion. I happen to believe that there is no constitutionally significant difference between aiding an eighteen year old student who is a freshman at Notre Dame University and aiding that student's seventeen year old sibling who is a - senior at Notre Dame Academy. I also happen to believe that the Supreme Court has been wrong in a series of decisions beginning with Everson v. Board of Education in 1947 and 352 1972. It is now generally recognized that that provision affects only low income students attending relatively low cost and universities. - overwhelmingly public colleges Not surprisingly, the institutions whose students are adversely affected by it have sought to have it removed or modified. Not surprisingly, they have been opposed by spokesmen for institutions - the higher cost that regard themselves as beneficiaries of this rather perverse provision. Although I have a deep interest in the institutional wellbeing of private higher education, I have no patience whatsoever with the view that sound public policy requires us to reduce the federal aid that would otherwise be provided to the neediest students in the land should they choose to attend a public institution. That cannot but impede our progress toward the equalization of educational opportunity in the United States. At the same time, I share the concern of many private college leaders that the present Basic Grants program by itself is simply inadequate to meet the need of their low income students and that additional sources of aid are necessary. This can be supplied by modifying the B.E.O.G. program, by ensuring adequate funding for the Supplemental Grants (S.E.O.G.) program, or by other means. 7 H.R. 5192 embodies an important 11 and admittedly - expensive compromise. For the first time in my exper 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 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. 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 |