Senator MORSE. Counsel for the minority has requested me to ask the following question and I share the request of counsel for the minority. It is a question we ought to ask and have an answer to if you have information on it. $30 MILLION FOR TITLE III? Your testimony indicates you are satisfied with the $30 million authorized for developing colleges, title III of the Higher Education Act. Last year Congress authorized $55 million for this purpose after including junior colleges. What is your rationale in favoring the reduction in the authorization? Mr. MORSE. Senator, the projects of title III are only recently approved. There is a good deal of uncertainty, I think, on the part of all the higher educational communities as to how best to go about strengthening these developing colleges. I think it was our feeling even a year ago that we didn't know enough about the proper techniques and the proper programs wisely to spend as much as was authorized for title III last year. This is a highly experimental program and one which gives a good deal of promise but there is no consensus within higher education as to how best to strengthen these institutions. We were not thinking of this so much as a reduction from $55 to $30 million as an increase from $5 million which we thought was totally inadequate to a figure that would be reasonable to launch a great many promising experimental programs. We made no recommendation last year as to the size of the authorization. $55 million was COMMUNITY COLLEGE BILL Senator MORSE. Yesterday we heard Dr. Priest who is the president of the American Association of Junior and Community Colleges. In his testimony, as you will note when you read it, called for more money and it also advocated consideration for a separate act, a separate law, for community and junior colleges support. If you will read the colloquy I had with him yesterday you will see it disturbed me a bit. I am not convinced that that is a desirable legislative approach. In that colloquy I said one of my first fears was that it might weaken the unity that has existed among the educational institutions of the country to go back to the old program which, I think, blocked Federal aid to education for years and years in this country, when each segment of education ought to get legislation that would meet its specific needs but not legislation giving unified support to meet the needs of other educational institutions. I told the hearing how in the first years of the Kennedy administration, after some setbacks in education legislation in the Congress, the President called the then Secretary of HEW, Mr. Ribicoff, presently Senator from Connecticut, and the chairman of this subcommittee to the White House. He discussed with us what we thought the reason for lack of progress was. We both told him that we thought there wasn't enough unity among the educators in the various education associations. You gentlemen bear witness to the fact that as a result of that we had a series of meetings across the country from coast to coast with the various educational organizations at all levels of education. The result was unity and it was that unity that produced, more than any other one factor in my judgment, the laws which were signed. I am a little worried about drawing a line of separation between the so-called higher education institutions, standard 4-year variety, and the higher education institutions of the junior and community college variety. I may be convinced of it, but I am not convinced as of now. I am not going to take the time now, but I do think you ought to read that testimony and comply with the request that I make of you, which you can respond to or not respond to, to give the subcommittee a memorandum, to be made a part of this record, setting forth your comments on that testimony because it bears also, to some degree, on this $30 million versus $55 million authorization figure of title III. Gentlemen, I thank you very much. Mr. KERLEY. Thank you. Senator MORSE. I think you have been very helpful to the subcommittee and you have made a good record. Mr. MORSE. Thank you, sir. (The following memorandums were subsequently received:) AMERICAN COUNCIL ON EDUCATION, Hon. WAYNE MORSE, Washington, D.C. DEAR SENATOR MORSE: During the course of our testimony on July 14, Senator Yarborough asked certain questions in connection with the newly enacted G.I. bill. As far as we can determine, there are approximately 50,000 veterans who are studying at the present time under the benefits of this bill. Over 80 percent of these are in institutions of higher education. It is anticipated that an additional 20,000 will be certified for eligibility in time to enroll for the second session of summer school. To date over 140,000 certificates of eligibility have been issued. As soon as they are issued, the veterans are eligible to start on their educational programs, provided they are admitted to the institution and to the course for which they are applying. If they are denied admission, as will unfortunately often be the case in view of enrollment pressures, they must then apply for a new certificate specifying a different institution or a different course. As far as we can determine, there is only a two week time lag between the time a veteran applies for his certificate and the time he is furnished it. Once it is issued it becomes immediately effective. To put it another way, we can find no evidence that a veteran who is found eligible for training now must postpone the start of that training until October. We have certain problems with the new G.I. bill which we may wish to bring before the appropriate Congressional committees. But we have no fault whatever to find with the way in which the Veterans' Administration is handling the processing of individual applications. In fact to date we have found the administration of this program to be both efficient and expeditious. Sincerely yours, JOHN F. MORSE, Director of the Commission. |