TABLE 7.-U. S. Office of Education survey of educational facilities of institutions of higher learning-status of plant facilities for the housing of students and faculty in relation to the need for such facilities for 1,171 institutions reporting through Apr. 28, 1947

[Floor space in thousands of square feet]

TABLE 8.-U. S. Office of Education, Survey of Educational Facilities of Institutions of Higher Learning Status of plant facilities for nonhousing purposes and for housing of students and faculty in relation to the need for such facilities for 1,167 institutions reporting through Apr. 28, 1947

SUMMARY OF INFORMATION REGARDING EDUCATION AND TRAINING OF VETERANS

The GI bill of rights guaranteed certain educational benefits to veterans. The number of veterans taking advantage of these benefits has exceeded all expectations and has created an extremely serious problem for the colleges and universities of the country. The following facts show the situation:

Veterans eligible for education and training

Reports of the Veterans' Administration show that veterans have been certified as eligible for rehabilitation, education, and training benefits under Public Laws 16 and 346 as follows:

There still is a very large number of veterans eligible to be certified for education and training that have not yet been certified.

ENROLLMENT OF VETERANS IN EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS AND JOB TRAINING The Veterans' Administration reports that veterans were enrolled in institutions for education, training, and rehabilitation in the following numbers on the dates specified.

As of March 31, 1947, approximately 875,000 veterans had discontinued or completed their desired courses according to reports of the Veterans' Administration. This includes veterans in all types of training, education or rehabilitation. The number of veterans who have discontinued or dropped out of institutions of higher education is smaller than the number of nonveterans who normally discontinue schooling. For veterans, the average is less than 10 percent. This leaves over 2,000,000 veterans now certified as eligible who have not entered education or training under the GI bill.

Senator AIKEN. The next witness this morning is Blake R. Van Leer, president, Georgia School of Technology, Atlanta.

STATEMENT OF BLAKE R. VAN LEER, PRESIDENT, GEORGIA SCHOOL OF TECHNOLOGY, ATLANTA, GA.

Dr. VAN LEER. Mr. Chairman, I have presented a written statement which has been filed with your committee which includes some statements from other educators and I can give you the gist of that in about 10 minutes, I think.

I am chairman of a special regional committee of the American Council on Education and member of the executive committee of the Association of Land Grant Colleges and Universities and I represent that body on a special committee which deals with matters of this kind.

Also, I have attended a great many educational gatherings and I carry on quite a correspondence with the educators, particularly in my region, and therefore I am pretty well informed, I think, as to how they feel about this particular legislation and I know of no educator who is opposed to S. 971. In fact, they are practically unanimous in favor of its passage. Although they might differ on certain details as to whether it should include all worthy institutions or whether limited to $250,000,000 or not.

Now, the educators in my region, the Southeast, have each submitted reasons and arguments, each of the members of the committee, as to why they think this legislation and this aid should be given by the Federal Government. In general their arguments run about like this: That our enrollments are now about double what they were before the war and although they are willing to provide for these needs up to the limit of their financial resources, these needs cannot be met for two reasons: First, they do not have the money, that is enough money; second, even with the money that they have obtained from State, local and private sources, that has been cut in half by inflation and by the increased cost of labor, materials, and construction.

We feel that the Federal Government shares the responsibility for this fact that our enrollments have suddenly doubled and this purchasing power of the dollar is cut in half; and therefore that the Federal Government ought to help in this dilemma.

Senator ELLENDER. Doctor, can you give us a few reasons why it is that the enrollments in all of our colleges have increased to such tremendous proportions in the last few years?

Dr. VAN LEER. Yes, sir; I have that incorporated in my statement. Most of our institutions of higher learning, as those charts from Dr. Hollis showed-I had not seen those charts until I came here and I made my statement-and my estimates hit his almost right on the nose as far as they are concerned; but most of the institutions of higher learning would have reached their present enrollment by 1952 to 1955 even if there had not been a World War. The increased enrollment in institutions of higher learning would have come about anyway.

Senator ELLENDER. Do you think it would be necessary for those institutions to come to the Federal Government for aid?

Dr. VAN LEER. Well, regardless of whether it might have been necessary or desirable for them to do it or not, the thing has been brought on us today, now; it is not a question of 1952-55; we have those enrollments today and the question before us is whether the Federal Government will help us today, not in 1952.

If there had not been a war, the States and private sources could have kept their building program under way but they could not do it because suddenly veterans are dumped on us today; we have the problem now and we have the problem of inflation now. We have the problem of increased costs and therefore we feel that it is a part of the Federal Government's responsibility.

And now, there are a great many other social and economic factors that are causing these enrollments to increase and I would like to cite you two or three of them.

One of them is that we live in a democracy, and moreover, every mother, just as she feels that her son is fit to be President of the United States feels also that he is fit to have a college education and she aspires for him to have it; and if I were in you gentlemen's place, and if I were you, I think I would try to help her son get the education and let the responsibility for flunking this mother's son rest upon the college professor and not upon the lack of assistance by the Federal Government in this emergency.

Second, the underproduction of consumer goods is a temporary phenomenon. The time will come when we will again be trying to provide jobs. Now, when that time comes, the process of shorter workweek, of earlier old-age retirements and longer training and preparation periods for youth will come about and that means that more and more young people will be kept in academic training for longer periods of time, which means that all of our educational plants must all of them-be increased.

If you plot up the curves of any, almost any, first-class institution. in the country, you will find that our enrollment-for example, in Georgia Tech, we could have had a 5-000,student enrollment in 1952 whether we had had a World War or not, and we plot our curves and project it and there you have it.

Sentor ELLENDER. It would have been a natural development; the war brought it about at this time, though?

Dr. VAN LEER. Yes, and if we could have built during the last 7 years--but we have not been able to build any buildings, permanent

ones.

Another factor also, Senator, is that most of the large industries today select managerial and professional trainees from college graduates. Now, that practice is, in my opinion, certain to increase and the mere knowledge that it exists today stimulates thousands of boys to go to college and so I come back to the conclusion that I am confident that the 1939-40 enrollments would have increased to what they are today by 1952-55, depending on the institution and type of training. Now, some of these institutions such as those that have engineering colleges, for example, face an unusual condition due to civilization, the type of civilization we are living in, and also due to the war. Prior to the war only 8 or 9 percent of the students enrolled in institutions of higher learning wanted to study engineering. Today, 30 percent of the graduates of high school are interested and want scientific type of education. That is three times the number if the crop of graduates was constant but the crop of graduates is always increasing and increasing for these factors which I have outlined.

Now, the question is, Will the Federal Government help the States today? It seems to me that it is fair and just that they should. The need is great and the need is urgent and the need is permanent and I think you will have ample restraint upon any extravagance. I think you raised that point in one of your questions a moment ago by insisting that these funds be matched.

After all, I believe that the regions and the supervisors or trustees who control these institutions are very wise and reputable men and I do not believe you can get them to cooperate in building permanent buildings which are not permanently needed.

And so, on behalf of the educators of the Southeast, and particularly in the Association of Land Grant Colleges and Universities, I would like to urge that your committee report out favorably this bill and that Congress speedily enact it.

Senator ELLENDER. Doctor, I want to say this: That I do not want you or any other witness or anyone in the audience to feel that you can tell by what question is asked by a Senator how he intends to

vote.

What I have always tried to do ever since I have been a member of the Senate these last 10 years is to take a negative attitude in hearings in order to get all the facts I could so that when we do present these proposals to the Congress that we will be pretty well armed with knowledge that may be essential in putting the proposition through.

Now, of course, I appreciate all of these studies made by men, Dr. Hollis and others, and presented here; but some of these studies bring us far afield sometimes as to what the intention is of the pending bill.

Here you want to tell the Congress that all that is needed is $250,000,000. They ask, "Are any additional funds necessary?" We say, "We do not know, but according to studies that have been made it appears that $2,000,000,000 are required."

So you can see the difficulties that we may encounter as we go along in arguing and presenting a bill of this character to the Congress. Dr. VAN LEER. As I understood Dr. Hollis' testimony, he did not know or care, certainly, in the questionnaire we filled out-he did not ask the question where we thought the money was going to come from for that building program, and that the answer that I gave him, and I am sure that pretty generally educators gave him, was based