USHE Equip. Study Report

July 27, 1983

Page 4 of 4 Pages

FINDINGS --Continued

Equipment Needs Across Eight USHE Institutions, By Program,
to More Closely Approximate State-of-the-art

Program

Off. Occup.

1184F

Technical

T. & I.

All Others

Totals

$ 2.26 M

$0.58 M

6.30 M

0.36 M

11.41 M

6.58 M

1.42 M

.79 M

$21.39 M

$8.31 M

Frank, I hope the data will be of value in your presentations before the various Congressional hearings on tax credits for equipment, on vocational education reauthoriztion, and on others. For some perspective, Utah's population is currently 1.65 million and growing. We need equipment not only to more closely approximate the state-of-the-art but also to provide for the tremendous growth which will hit the USHE in five years. Nearly 45 percent of all lower division full-time equivalent enrollments in the eight institutions studied are enrolled in vocational education programs.

Call me if you want some findings not reported above.

cc: Dean Griffin, AVA Gene Woolf

Arvo Van Alstyne

Don Carpenter
Gail Norris

Replacement
Equipment
Costs

Additional Total
Equipment
Costs

David R. Terry, Ph.D.
Assistant Commissioner

Equipment
Costs

$ 2.84 M

6.65 M

17.99 M

2.21 M

$29.69 M

Percent Costs Needed

9.6

22.4

60.6

7.4

100.0

STATEMENT OF DR. RICHARD K. GREENFIELD, CHANCELLOR, ST. LOUIS COMMUNITY COLLEGE, ST. LOUIS, MO.

Dr. GREENFIELD. Thank you, Senator. Mr. Chairman, my name is Richard Greenfield. I am the chancellor of the St. Louis Community College District in St. Louis, Mo. I am speaking here on behalf of my own institutions as well as the two associations that were just mentioned by Wayne Newton. If my statement may be entered in the record, I will summarize my remarks.

Senator GRASSLEY. Yes; it will be included in toto.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Richard K. Greenfield follows:]

Mr. Chairman, my name is Richard Greenfield. I am the Chancellor of St. Louis Community College, St. Louis, Missouri.

I deeply appreciate the willingness of you and your Subcommittee to consider the needs that are addressed in S. 108, and to allow the community colleges the opportunity to comment on those needs.

S. 108 and bills such as S. 1194 and S. 1195 that deal with the state-of-theart equipment needs that plague technician training programs could be vital links in how effectively our country addresses the towering challenges that we face in science, technology, and productivity.

The challenges are larger than simply making fuller use of the Nation's human resources, larger than simply reprogramming and retraining the workforce. We are faced with building a workforce that can meet and outperform the global competition at its own level. This means that both the people who give the training and the people taking the training have to have every advantage that we can build into each and every technician program that directly or indirectly relates to national productivity. State-of-the-art equipment is indispensible among such advantages.

I know that I do not have to tell Members of this Committee what is at stake in

this competition, and the revenues that will flow if we sustain our place at the front of the competition. It is our complete conviction that the productivity deriving from a successful national commitment to training will repay many times over the modest tax investment required to implement S. 108.

Mr. Chairman, some of your colleagues are concerned that this legislation will create a strain on the Treasury, the result of decreased tax revenues. A recent report prepared by the National Science Foundation assuages those concerns. The report contains preliminary results of an assessment of three research and development tax incentives provided by the Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981. One of

those incentives was the donation of equipment to universities for basic research

purposes.

Among the study's findings were:

o less than $5 million per year would be lost to the Treasury through

this law (as estimated by the Department's Office of Tax Analysis)

o equipment donations are likely to increase because of the tax in-
centives and other factors

o significant explanations for equipment donations include: suit-
ability of equipment for college and university work, response to
greater frequency of requests from postsecondary institutions,
effort to "produce the scientific and technical skill-base necessary
to keep the United States competitive in international markets,"
market development, public relations, and improved tax treatment.

What this report says very clearly is that if tax incentives are given to the private sector for equipment donations for postsecondary technical instruction, and if we ask the firms for such donations, they will be forthcoming. And the donation will cause little negative effect on the Treasury for the immediate term. For the longer term, equipment donations leading to a more highly skilled workforce and generating more productivity will in fact create a stronger and broader tax base. Eventually, the tax credit program described in S. 108 will pay for itself many

times over.

Mr. Chairman, previously you heard testimony regarding the diminished level of appropriations that many public postsecondary institutions are receiving from state budgets as reported in a recent study by an organization of presidents of state colleges and universities. I thought you might like to know how each of the states that you represent fared in this study. These percentages have been adjusted for inflation and cover the ten-year period 1972-73 to 1982-83.

Hawaii: +23 percent

Texas: +89 percent

Montana: +33 percent

Louisiana: +47 percent

It is clear that some states have done much better than others in meeting the support needs of their public postsecondary institutions. Others have not done so well. The facts are that 30 states increased their appropriations for public colleges and universities by less than three percent per year during this period; eleven states actually decreased appropriations.

The tragedy is that with modest advances in appropriations--or worse, with decreases--some of the basic components that maintain and improve higher education health and vigor are either eliminated or severely reduced. Faculty are cut, supplies and equipment budgets are sliced, and professional development activities are

eliminated or curtailed.

It is not the responsibility of the federal government to make up for the in-. abilities of state governments to adequately support public higher education. when it is possible, it is the responsibility of the federal government to create the sort of environment that will encourage the flow of support from other sectors. One of the resources that has been tapped inadequately in the past is the private sector. The 1981 tax laws stimulated increased equipment donations to universities for basic research. Now we need to extend that successful law to equipment donations to less-than-baccalaureate institutions for purposes of vocational/technical

But