severe than many comparable cities but indeed more severe than the needs of some States.

It has been recognized across the Nation that the need for education requires the resources of strong public institutions as well as strong private colleges and universities. Today, more than ever, State and local governments are using their higher education facilities to meet the demands of an increasingly complex urban environment.

Mr. Chairman, recognizing that Washington has greater needs than some of the States, it is, at the same time, vastly inferior in the opportunities for higher public education which it is able to offer its citizens. In virtually all the States, not only does a city student have a choice of a minimum-cost city college, but there is also the additional choice of a State university.

And we in the District are so well aware, and as the President's Committee stated and documented in its report, the talents of many students from low-income families are now being wasted because they cannot afford the cost of higher education. Today in the District of Columbia thousands of such students are forced to accept the fact that they cannot meet the cost of higher education. A system of low-cost, public higher education will lower financial barriers and offer educational opportunities to every student who can benefit from it.

As I have stated, District of Columbia Teachers College is extended to its limits. Howard University, which is a federally sponsored national university, simply does not have the physical space for additional students. Moreover, its mission is being expanded to the education of foreign students, particularly from the underdeveloped countries.

The facilities of the private institutions are also burdened. Moreover, they are too expensive for students from most of our medium and low-income families. Tuition now averages $1,450 per year in our four private universities. Five years ago average tuition in these same schools was approximately $900.

In addition, the private universities, under the pressure of greatly increased enrollment demands, have become much more selective in their admission standards. Today the "C" student from the District has no hope of being admitted to any of the city's private universities, yet this student especially needs further education and training to equip him to earn a living in this era.

And I would like to emphasize that this is the type of student who not only needs a college education or an education beyond the high school, but he is a student who is most discriminated against both economically and other ways in respect to the obtaining of that education.

Senator MORSE. I am so glad, Commissioner, that you made this point in your statement because this is the student that is being overlooked in higher education in America today. As the pressure upon the so-called standard universities to admit students increases they just do not have adequate facilities so they raise admission standards and that means they are keeping out the "C" student.

As you heard me say before, this student is the backbone of our whole educational system. You cannot sacrifice him. You do our whole country damage by denying him a college education. You are going to create serious problems in my judgment if you do not see to

it that these students that cannot all be "A" students-who seek college work are not denied college education.

Mr. TOBRINER. Very frequently the "C" students: when offered a wider selectivity and greater counseling become the "A" student. They are late bloomers, and even as late as graduation from high school.

Senator MORSE. That is so demonstrable. In fact, I used to say if you are going to limit me to one criteria for admission to law school, granted that you give me a mind that is capable of doing satisfactory law school work, the one criterion that I would then select would be maturity.

I have seen many of these young men come to law school and have great difficulty. I have sent them back to the academic colleges for another year of two of academic college work and then they come back with another year or two of maturity and they become very able students.

I think the most dramatic example of it was following World War II when we brought into our professional schools the GI's and the superior work that they did. Many factors caused it of course, but you cannot overlook the factor of maturity. So I never sell the "C" student short and I am glad that you made this plea for him and for her this morning because we are doing irreparable damage, I think, in our educational processes by thinking we are going to solve our educational problems by constantly raising admission to our colleges.

Mr. TOBRINER. The plain facts are that the average District high school graduate does not and cannot expect to enter the private universities. In 1964 only 140 city high school graduates were admitted to the 4 private universities. All other District of Columbia graduates who made application to these private universities were denied admittance solely on the basis of academic disqualification. Their "C" average just couldn't compete with the academic qualifications of the other applicants.

The evidence is unmistakable that economic factors do indeed discourage District high school graduates from seeking higher education. The President's Committee noted that the "percentage of graduates of the several District public high schools who enter college upon graduation varies directly with the median family income of the families in the area which the school serves.

"The high schools serving areas where family income is below $5,000 have the lowest percentages ranging from 16.6 to 26.9." This statistic is even more meaningful when it is realized that 73.7 percent of the graduates from one city high school-the school which serves the area where family income is above $10,000-do go to college.

Of the students from low-income families I have just referred to, it is significant that 95 percent of the graduates who did attend a local university enrolled at Howard which, as I previously stated, is a national university. The facilities of Howard are limited and are quite incapable of coping with the present as well as the ever-expanding numbers of "collegeable" high school graduates in this city.

In recent months the Congress has enacted truly historic assistance and development programs for every level of American education. As they apply to student assistance for higher education, these programs are clearly intended to ameliorate the economic and cultural handicaps that exist in such unfortunate and classic abundance in the District of Columbia.

Title IV of the 1965 Higher Education Act, for example, establishes a scholarship program for economically deprived students in schools of higher education. Grants from $200 to $800 per academic year are now available.

Also included under this act is a system of guaranteed low-interest loans for students in community colleges and 4-year institutions. A reduced interest feature for students from low-income families makes this program particularly attractive to young District residents.

This same act provides an additional source of income through a cooperative work-study program for students from low-income families to begin or complete a higher education program in either a 2- or a 4-year institution.

The National Defense Education Act student loan program is another source of funds for students to continue or complete programs in an "institution of higher education." Amendments in 1964 and 1965 added to flexibility and made this act potentially more valuable to District students.

A separate loan program under the 1965 Vocational Student Loan Assistance Act makes loans available to students enrolled in business, trade, technical, and vocational schools. The value of these programs to the community college, which is designed to stress technical aspects, is obvious.

These are the major student assistance programs which are now nominally available to District students. But for a student actually to receive assistance under any of these programs, and I emphasize this, he must be enrolled or accepted in an institution of higher education. So student assistance programs are of no avail to a student who does not have the capacity or right to enter into an institution of higher learning. They are absolutely lost.

The pertinent fact is that each of these programs is administered by the institutions of higher education. For a student to benefit from any of these enlightened programs, there must exist educational facilities in which he can enroll. Such facilities do not exist in the District of Columbia.

At present a student from a low-income family who wishes to attend a public community college must leave the city and enroll in another State if he is to take advantage of the low-interest student loan program. Distance alone can and usually does makes such action impractical.

The increased availability of financial assistance will generate in the District of Columbia, as it will across the Nation, a greater demand for higher education. As I have stated, the facilities of Howard University are already taxed to the limit. The city's private institutions are also operating at capacity, and even with the new assistance programs, their tuition fees put them beyond the financial reach of far too many District students.

A public community college and a public liberal arts institution are basic to this city's ability to utilize adequately the educational opportunities that a wise Congress has created. If we fail to provide sufficient educational facilities, we will, in large measure for all practical purposes at least, Mr. Chairman, be repealing the Federal student assistance programs as they apply to the District of Columbia.

Mr. Chairman, up to this point I have attempted to justify the

creation of a higher education system in terms of sheer human and educational necessity, but there are additional sound management and fiscal reasons that argue for positive action on S. 1612 at this time. The institutions to be created by this legislation will be eligible for substantial Federal financial aid. The Higher Education Act of 1965, providing for three separate grant programs makes the point with sufficient emphasis.

Included in this single important act are three separate grant programs that can be utilized as a source of financial aid for District public higher education. In short, the material inducements are without parallel in the history of American education.

Before we can respond to this opportunity, however, we must first have a viable system of public higher education.

At this point, Mr. Chairman, I would like to address myself to the more specific community roles that the two proposed institutions would assume.

It has come to be well recognized that the institution in American higher education deemed best able to carry the burden of extending general education beyond the high school level is the comprehensive community college. This concept is highly relevant to the District of Columbia.

A District community college will serve as a frame of academic reference for students who do not now even consider education beyond high school. Its mere existence will generate hope and incentive for the average student. And it is the student of average ability and background that is now being neglected and who is so desperately in need of help.

It is important also to emphasize that a community college, together with a constantly improving vocational educational system, will help meet the consistent and growing demand for technical and semiprofessional manpower which is so important in our technically oriented

economy.

We do not feel that either a community college or an improved vocational education system alone can meet the demand. Rather, a blending and coordination of the two programs would be the ideal. The two institutions could, for instance, share a common site (or at least an adjacent one), integrate resources such as equipment, develop joint teaching agreements and a coordinated curriculum-for example, vocational training in drafting at the secondary school level, leading to a community college course in designing, culminating in a 4-year course in architecture-all of which should reap educational benefits as well as savings in expenditures and operating costs.

A study by the National Science Foundation, for example, forecasts that, while the civilian economy will need many more engineers than were thought 5 years ago to be necessary, we also face an acute shortage in the ranks of the skilled craftsmen and technicians.

Thus a high school diploma has now become less a terminal and more a preparation and opportunity for further study and training.

By the same token, the economy will provide fewer and fewer opportunities for young people who approach the world of work with limited educational achievements.

We are building massive problems for the future-in welfare, unemployment, poverty and crime-unless we provide a maximum of oppor

tunity for the youth of today to achieve the highest level of education of which they are capable.

The President's Committee has made clear that the purpose of a District of Columbia community college is the following:

To educate and train the large number and great variety of technicians and other skilled persons on whom a highly industrialized and rapidly changing society depends;

To prepare students for further formal education in 4-year colleges and universities;

To offer opportunities for adults to repair their cultural and educational deficiencies, to redirect their abilities and to improve their knowledge and competence;

To provide through education and community life the knowledge and the ideas on which active, informed and responsible citizenship is of necessity based; and

To enrich the personal lives of students through both formal and informal contacts with art and literature, artists and writers-indeed, with all those sources of human greatness.

With reference to the establishment of a college of liberal arts and science, the President's Committee has spoken with equal clarity. The report states that the District "*** should have a completely new physical and educational setting for the vital function of teacher educations."

The President's Committee could not be more correct when it stated that

the young people of the District should have the opportunity now enjoyed by the young people in all the States to attend a publicly supported institution offering a liberal education at least through the baccalaureate degree.

We believe the mission of the District of Columbia 4-year college should include the offering of adequate and qualified course study to be used by those students desiring a postbaccalaureate education.

As you know, Mr. Chairman, we require a master's degree of our permanent teachers in the secondary schools in the District. Emphasis in teacher education will be directed to meet our ever increasing demands for highly qualified teachers.

The 4-year college would also supplement the District of Columbia General Hospital School of Nursing in offering postgraduate courses to nurses-a profession critically needed and in short supply in the District of Columbia.

While the President's Committee made estimates of the expected initial size of the student body of both public institutions of higher learning, these estimates are naturally subject to the constant growth and changing environmental factors that have so long been difficult factors in future planning here in the District.

On the basis of the Committee's report and peripheral studies, it is anticipated that the community college will have an annual entering class of about 1,400 students during the early years of its operation, and on a 2-year basis, a total student body of approximately 2,500 students.

With reference to the 4-year college, the Committee states that there are at least 600 secondary school graduates each year who are

** college-able but who can afford to continue in school only in a publicly supported institution.