Mr. CHAUNCEY. If it is possible for States in carrying out scholarship programs that would be supported by a Federal grant to use the income tax as a basis, I think this would be the simplest thing to do, and would be about as equitable as any basis you could use. In other words, if a family had paid over a certain amount in Federal income taxes, no scholarship; if it has paid between this amount and this amount, a scholarship of $1,000; if it is a little bit lower, a scholarship of $800, $600, $400. The Federal income tax has been developed over a long period of years to do justice to people. Mr. Elliott. I am not sure about it, but is the Federal income taxare the Federal income-tax records not secret? Mr. CHAUNCEY. Secret? Mr. ELLIOTT. Are the Federal income-tax records not secret? Mr. CHAUNCEY. I am afraid that this is the case. And I said, in the beginning, possibly some provision could be made so it would be possible to use this. The other thing is just to accept the sworn statement of the applicant as to how much he paid on his Federal income tax. An alternative, of course, would be for the States to use their own State income taxes. But some system like this seems to me to be reasonable, equitable, and a whale of a lot simpler than more complicated methods that actually we developed for the colleges to use in the award of their scholarships. But, in a big program like this to go through a very elaborate form and computations would be expensive, and I do not think worth it. Mr. ELLIOTT. What would it cost to go through the ordinary-well, to go through the same investigation that most of the colleges use in awarding their scholarships on the basis of need? Mr. CHAUNCEY. I think it would cost about $4 a person. Mr. ELLIOTT. $4 a person? Mr. CHAUNCEY. Yes. Mr. ELLIOTT. If it were done on a national basis, countrywide, with presumably many hundreds of thousands of applicants, you probably would be facing a cost of maybe more money than that per applicant. Mr. CHAUNCEY. Yes; it is possible this could be simplified if one is going to go into it on this basis over the elaborate system that was first developed, where the sole objective was to be completely fair. We have found that simpler systems yield almost the same results for individuals with incomes up to $6,000 or $7,000, and it is after that point that things get very complicated, and you have a whole lot of factors to weigh. Someone would have to tackle this problem and see what could be done. You impose a very considerable job on the parents in filling out a blank, but, of course, after all this is something they are only too willing to do, generally, in the hope of getting a scholarship. Mr. ELLIOTT. Shouldn't your loans be restricted to students of above-average merit or be available to all students able to remain in college, skipping now to the loan provision, Doctor. Mr. CHAUNCEY. Well, my own inclination would be to say that the loan should be available to all students who are doing satisfactory work in college; that, is, they are passing, and that the loans really serve 2 functions here; 1 is they may supplement the scholarships of the students who go to institutions where the expenses are larger than $1,000 and they need the additional money, but they can also be used, as the witness this morning suggests for the students that do not quite qualify for a scholarship, along with some funds the student may have himself or be able to earn in summer and term-time employment, and make it possible for him to go to college. So I would say all students. Mr. ELLIOTT. Should there be any restriction on loans, such as a means test? Mr. CHAUNCEY. No; I think it is its own means test, so to speak. Well, there are conceivable problems, I suppose, of a father who can figure that if his son borrows the money at this very advantageous rate, then he can invest his money in something else. I have not really thought through how you could control that-whether this would be a rule problem or not, but one might, I suppose, have a rule of thumb at least, that individuals whose parents have more than rather substantial income should be barred from this, so that this kind of game will not be played. Mr. HASKELL. Will the gentleman yield? Mr. ELLIOTT. I yield. Mr. HASKELL. You are talking about loans with interest rates of what? Ordinary bank rates or subsidy rates? Mr. CHAUNCEY. It is 2 percent; is it not? Mr. ELLIOTT. Yes. Mr. HASKELL. You are talking about in the bill? Mr. CHAUNCEY. Yes. Mr. ELLIOTT. How many Federal scholarships would you think are needed, Dr. Chauncey? Would you have any guess about that, or any estimate or judgment? Mr. CHAUNCEY. It depends on what your objective is; that is, if you are trying to get all the students in the top 20 or 25 percent of the class into college it would be one thing. If you are trying to get all of the top 10 percent it would be something else. If you are merely trying to, or if you are also trying to balance off the factors as to what could be possibly passed, that brings another element into it. If it were possible, I would like to see a program that involved 150,000 scholarships a year. I think this probably is not possible. I think that the level that you have suggested in your bill is a good strong start. It would take care of a little less than the top 3 percent of the students in the graduating classes of the high schools of the country, and this will leave many other students to be taken care of by the other scholarships that there are, and other means, and we will still have some students that should be going to college that will not be going to college, but I think it should not be cut down below the 40,000 that you suggested. Mr. LANDRUM. Mr. Chairman. Mr. ELLIOTT. The gentleman from Georgia. Mr. LANDRUM. Where are you going to put them, Dr. Chauncey? Mr. CHAUNCEY. In the colleges? Mr. LANDRUM. Yes. Where are you going to put them? Mr. CHAUNCEY. I am glad you raised this question, because I do not regard this as a problem at all. In the first place, there are some institutions that are selective already, and they select the best students, and the important purpose here is to get the best students into college, not merely to get more students in college. When it comes to the State universities, the land grant colleges and State universities about which you heard testimony this morning, it seems to me they can take care of their immediate situation very well by being selective. In all but about two States they have the right to be selective, and at the moment they are taking in students from the fourth quarter of their class. These people should not be holding out people who are in the top 3 percent. So if the State institutions, with their present facilities will only adopt policies that will prevent the necessity of rapid expansion, they can handle the situation and they will get very good students, the top quality students, and some of the ones who were borderline will have to go to some other kind of post-high-school education. Another factor here is that as time goes on and the larger age groups are coming through, all these institutions have all these institutions of higher education-are going to have to take care of more students in the aggregate, anyway. There is a real problem coming on. At the moment, the classes going into college are at the trough of the population size, that is, we are just at the end of the period of the low birth rate among the group that have entered college this past fall. In a few years the colleges are going to be swamped, and then there is going to be a real problem, which may require some fairly massive support for these institutions, and I think that the problem of the private institutions is going to be very grave because of the increased cost of these institutions and the difficulties of finding the support. The State universities by and large can get money from their State legislatures, so I am a little less concerned about their financial problems than I am the privately endowed institutions. Mr. LANDRUM. One additional question in that regard, if I may: Which of these two do you feel is more responsible for our shortage today in trained scientists and mathematicians: the failure to get boys and girls into college or the failure to equip them in high school to study there subjects when they get to college? Mr. CHAUNCEY. I do not think it is the kind of thing you can easily divide between these two. The 2 things seem to me to be 2 parts of the same problem. Mr. LANDRUM Now, doctor, is it not true today that most of the colleges and universities in this land are filled to capacity? Is that not true? Mr. CHAUNCEY. There are lots of colleges that are not filled at the present time. Mr. LANDRUM. The majority of them are filled to capacity, is that not true? Mr. CHAUNCEY. I am not sure even that is true. As even as good an institution as Washington University in St. Louis is not filled this year. Mr. LANDRUM. Is Princeton University filled. Mr. CHAUNCEY. Princeton University is. The best known colleges have many more people than they can take care of. Mr. LANDRUM. Is Rutgers full? Mr. CHAUNCEY. But the privately endowed colleges of little lower range, that are still first rate institutions, as soon as the cost goes up, and they have to raise their tuition fees, then they are not-and this is true of Washington University. Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to say that I must leave, but I wanted before I leave to say that I think Dr. Chauncey has been a stimulating and constructive witness, and he must be able to pass his verbal ability test with flying colors, and I am sure his testimony has been very helpful to the committee. Mr. CHAUNCEY. Thank you. Mr. ELLIOTT. I want to join the gentleman from New Jersey in expressing the same thought. Your testimony has been most helpful, and your cooperative attitude is much appreciated by the chairman, and I am sure by every member of this committee. You have been very helpful and very cooperative in coming down here a second time. Mr. CHAUNCEY. I appreciate the committee's patience in dealing with difficult subjects. Mr. ELLIOTT. Ånd before we close I want to say, without objection, that the surveys of statewide testing programs and services, taken from resource materials, the large scale programs of testing and guidance of the Educational Testing Service be made a part of the record immediately following the testimony of Dr. Chauncey. (The information referred to follows:) SURVEYS OF STATEWIDE TESTING PROGRAMS AND SERVICES On January 30, 1958, questionnaires on testing services and programs were sent to the 48 State and 4 Territorial departments of education and to 30 State colleges and universities. By February 20, 1958, replies had been received from 30 State and 2 Territorial departments of education and from 23 State colleges and universities. This splendid cooperation enables us to present on the following pages a picture of how some of the State public agencies help schools use tests. In the future we hope to obtain more complete information and to check our interpretation of the replies. Meanwhile readers may wish to consult two other sources of information on State testing programs and services: Segal, David. State Testing Programs and Services. Washington, D. C.: United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, June 1955. Traxler, A. E. The Status of Statewide Testing Programs. New York: Educational Records Bureau, July 1954. Pages 86-91. |