9 and language development. For more years than I care to remember, I have found myself annually pleading with their purposes demand. They positively invite budget 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 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 10 reasons: institutions need financial help if they are to make their buildings fully accessible to handicapped persons; if they are to modify their buildings to conserve energy; and if they are to replace or renovate antiquated facilities and equipment so as to make possible the conduct of modern research, particularly in the sciences. I am not certain that the mix of funds provided in H.R. 5192 is the correct one. I am concerned that undue emphasis may be given to loans, which are at best a troublesome means for nonprofit institutions to engage in capital construction projects, rather than straightforward grants, and I am not sure that sufficient emphasis is given to the graduate facilities that include most of the research teaching - as opposed to the enterprise. But some such reform and extension of federal assistance with the soaring costs of the academic physical plant is absolutely vital, and I urge this Subcommittee to make adequate provision. My final comment returns to the subject of student aid and to Title IV. One of the reasons that there seems to be insufficient leeway in the overall federal student assistance budget for adequate grant aid is because we now find ouselves spending so much to subsidize studdent loans. It is not at all clear to me that subsidized loans are an efficient means of providing aid to needy students, especially when 11 hundreds of millions of dollars in loan subsidies will be going to students who, by the definition of Title IV itself, are not "needy." I favor easily accessible loans to students and parents, and am prepared to see such Put loans made directly by the federal government as well as by I hope that the Subcommittee will consider such a modification. Senator PELL. Our next witness is Dr. Dallas Martin, executive director of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, and an old friend of the committee. STATEMENT OF DR. DALLAS MARTIN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF STUDENT FINANCIAL AID ADMINISTRATORS, WASHINGTON, D.C. Dr. MARTIN. Thank you, Senator Pell. It is indeed a pleasure to be here again today to discuss with you our recommendations on reauthorization of the title IV student assistance programs. I want to commend you, Senator Stafford and the other members of the subcommittee, for your long support and patience in this area. Senator, as we have reviewed the particular programs, we find that, at the current time, they are working, and they are working very well. Let me just say at the beginning that last year, thanks to your leadership by introducing the College Opportunity Act which later became MISAA, we have had an opportunity now to see that particular legislation enacted. Let me share with you that, in comparision of statistics from the Office of Education just last month, that we have already found this this year in the total number of applications that it has risen by over 400,000 over 1 year ago at the same period in time. However, a more dramatic piece of information, I think, that that same record shows is that we have over 900,000 more eligible |