SCHOLARSHIP AND LOAN PROGRAM

TUESDAY, MARCH 25, 1958

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPECIAL EDUCATION,

AND SUBCOMMITTEE ON GENERAL EDUCATION,

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR,

Washington, D. C.

The subcommittees met at 10 a. m. in room 429, House Office Building, the Honorable Carl Elliott (chairman) presiding. Mr. ELLIOTT. The committees will be in order.

As the first item of business this morning I recognize the gentleman from Delaware, Mr. Haskell, who will introduce one of our witnesses. STATEMENT OF HON. HARRY G. HASKELL, JR., A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF DELAWARE

Mr. HASKELL. Mr. Chairman, Dr. Miller and John Leach have long been very good friends of mine and I would like to read, if I may, this statement of their accomplishments.

Dr. Miller is president of Goldey Beacom School of Business, Wilmington, Del., an independent business school offering 1- and 2-year programs on the post-high-school level. He is appearing before you in behalf of the independent business schools, which number about 1,500 in the country.

Dr. Miller has spent 48 years as a teacher and administrator in the educational field. Of this time, he spent 2 years as a teacher in a rural school in North Dakota; 1 year in a high school in Wisconsin; 3 years on the faculty of a liberal arts college in South Dakota; 1 year on the faculty of the University of Minnesota; 5 years as an independent instructor in salesmanship and real estate; and 36 years as a teacher, department head, and administrator in independent business schools. Dr. Miller is past president of the National Association and Council of Business Schools, an organization of 450 business schools, and was twice given the man-of-the-year award for service to the businessschool field, in 1948 and 1956.

A list of other accomplishments includes:

Consultant, and past chairman, the Accrediting Commission for Business Schools, which currently accredits 150 business schools of the country; past president, Eastern Business Teachers Association, an organization of approximately 3,000 business educators in public high schools, business schools, junior colleges, colleges, and universities; past president, Business Education Research Associates, a nonprofit corporation representing 14 leading business schools, and dedicated to research and improvement of the independent business-school

field; past president, Wilmington Chapter, National Office Management Association (merit award); past national director, area 3, Ñational Office Management Association; past first vice president and past treasurer, National Business Teachers Association; past president, Delaware Business Teachers Association; past president, Delaware Vocational Association (a division of American Vocational Association.)

Consultant, Administrator's Vocational Rehabilitation and Education Advisory Committee, Veterans' Administration, Washington, D. C.

Received Phi Delta Kappa gold-medal award for honors in research, Temple University, 1936.

It gives me a great deal of pleasure to have the opportunity of introducing to you Dr. Miller, who will, I guess, testify as second man here on the list today.

Mr. ELLIOTT. We are going to hear Dr. Miller right now, and let me say to the witnesses this morning, when these schedules are made they are made subject, of course, to what transpires in our parent body, the United States House of Representatives. It so happens that the House goes into session at 11 o'clock today and we have 4 witnesses scheduled, and I am going to have to ask the witnesses to confine their testimony to 15 minutes each. That is all the time we have. Ordinarily each witness can have 30 minutes, but the House goes into session at 11 o'clock instead of 12 o'clock today, so if I call time on you, you will realize what the situation is.

It is now 10:15. Dr. Miller, you may proceed for 15 minutes. We are happy to have you here.

STATEMENT OF JAY W. MILLER, PRESIDENT, GOLDEY BEACOM SCHOOL OF BUSINESS, WILMINGTON, DEL.

Dr. MILLER. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I appreciate very much Mr. Haskell's reviewing the associations I have had, which makes it unnecessary for me to continue with that.

During my career, I have always been interested in the place of the independent business school in American education and have tried to render what service I could in advancing its program and service to the public. (See reprint of The Place of the Private Business School in American Education, attached.) When I was graduated from the School of Business of the University of Minnesota in 1924, where I was currently employed as a half-time instructor in accounting, I was offered an opportunity to become a full-time instructor at the university. I declined because I had an abiding faith in our private educational program as part of our free enterprise system.

In 1939 my doctoral study at Temple University was completed on A Critical Analysis of the Organization, Administration, and Function of the Private Business Schools of the United States. The study was based on a survey of 576 private business schools; it was submitted to, and accepted by, the faculty of Teachers College, Temple University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of doctor of education. The study was published by the Southwestern Publishing Co.

In my introduction to the study, I said: "The private business school is a sort of stepchild in American education.

"Unregulated, uncontrolled, sometimes praised and oftimes condemned, the private business school was for many years the only educational agency that endeavored to prepare young people for business

careers.

"The private business school may be defined as a day school, usually with an evening school division, giving instruction in subjects designed to prepare its students for business careers, owned and operated by an individual, individuals, or corporation, without tax support, and usually without control or regulations by any Government agency."

My concluding statement (p. 92) was: "The private business school has survived all kinds of economic conditions and all kinds of praise and criticism. *** In recent years, its function has been encroached upon, but never wholly taken, by other educational institutions. It has served, and still serves, a function that is not fulfilled by any other educational agency. As long as it serves that function and serves it well, its future is secure."

Much has happened in the 19 years since that study was made and published. Many States now regulate and control the operation of business schools within their borders. Most business schools now require high-school graduation for entrance, and some are operating on the junior-college level. Some are listed in Education Directory, Part 3: Higher Education, published by the United States Office of Education.

Some have specialized in medical and legal secretarial programs; some have already developed engineering and scientific secretarial programs in line with the current emphasis on engineering and science; some have developed courses on automation to keep pace with the current emphasis on automation in the office.

Following World War II and the Korean conflict, the private business schools made a major contribution to the public welfare by training large numbers of veterans under P. O. 346 and Public Law 550.

In 1912, the National Association and Council of Business Schools was organized for the specific purpose of serving the public in the supervision and direction it gives to business education. Dr. H. D. Hopkins, former president of Defiance College, is executive secretary of this association, with headquarters in Washington. It has developed a code of ethics, course structures, and many other plans for the improvement of the business-school field.

Traditionally, the private business schools have not had access to the services of the regional accrediting agencies, because these agencies specify that they will not accredit schools that are organized for profit. They have claimed, as have some others, that a sound educational program and a proprietary organization are incompatible; that they cannot have coexistence.

The Accrediting Commission for Business Schools, which is sponsored by, but not controlled by, the National Association and Council of Business Schools, has challenged the position of those educators who frown upon the proprietary nature of most business schools. The accrediting commission maintains that an educational institution should be measured by the quality of its educational program and not solely by its financial structure. It maintains that the administrators of a private business school are entitled to a fair return

for the investment they make, and the risk they take; and that there is no dependable evidence that these administrators have any more take-home pay than administrators with comparable duties in taxsupported schools. It maintains that there is nothing unethical in teaching a student how to make a profit out of the training he receives; and, incidentally, making a profit while teaching him how

to do it.

The ACBS is composed of 13 commissioners, of whom 8 are business-school administrators and 5 are leaders in collegiate business education and in industry. The accrediting commission meets annually to accredit, or to refuse to accredit, applicant schools, or to withdraw accreditation from any that prove unworthy. It has developed a set of criteria and operating procedures. It can and does police the schools it accredits. After years of work, the ACBS was approved in 1956 by the United States Office of Education as a nationally recognized accrediting agency under the provisions of Public Law 550. I had the honor of being chairman of the accrediting commission when the approval was granted. We believe the decisions of ACBS to be adequate protection to the public against unworthy schools.

In examining some of the bills that have been introduced in Congress on Federal aid to education, we note that some of them would limit Federal assistance to students in schools that are nonprofit and/or tax supported. This provision would eliminate many worthy business schools and technical institutes that are proprietary in nature.

As a matter of fact, our whole economy is based upon the free-enterprise system and schools that are organized without tax support should be honored and respected for what they are doing in serving the young people and saving tax money for the public.

I do not know what the national figures are for total tax support to higher education. I do know that in one nearby State the State legislature appropriates more than $1,000 per student per year to the State university for its support. It is a good university and worthy of all the tax support it can get.

If, on the other hand, the 700 students now enrolled in a nearby business school were transferred to the State university, it would add over a half million dollars annually to the tax bills of the citizens of the State. If the independent business schools of the country were closed_and_only one-half of their estimated 500,000 students were transferred to the campuses of the State universities, it would add, at the same rate, over $250 million annually to the tax bills of American citizens. To put it differently, the independent business schools, operating as they are now, are saving the taxpayers an estimated quarter of a billion dollars each year.

Surely the business schools should be given credit for doing an educational job, without tax support, that otherwise would have to be done with tax support. By doing an educational job without tax support, they are freeing those tax dollars for other forms of educational effort.

Goldey Beacom School of Business, one of these business schools, has 700 students in its day division, and 300 in the evening division; it serves 1,700 students annually. Organized originally in 1886, it has trained approximately 75,000 men and women. It has no tax sup