of any of the others. But too many students even Howard's relatively low tuition is prohibitive, and even if it were not, Howard's capacity is limited.

The point is that none of the five existing universities was intended to be a local school, none considers itself a local school, and none should be expected to concentrate on serving the local need.

The new Federal aid programs-I don't need to tell this committee about the two education acts of 1965. Each was a great step forward for the Nation, but each was intended merely to supplement a relatively adequate existing public-private educational system. No such system exists in the District above the high school level at the present time, and the Higher Education Act of 1965 is not designed to provide

it.

Should the Council of Churches address this issue-clearly the need was genuine, tremendous, urgent and unserved-but was public education a proper issue for the church? Was it really a valid moral issue as well as a secular one? The question almost answered itself when it was rephrased to ask: Is it morally defensible to deny the youth of the District access to public higher educational opportunities when such opportunities are available to the youth of every State in the Union?

The point is that to deny a young person education to his fullest potential is both to deprive the Nation of his full services and to relegate him to permanent second-class citizen status due to no fault of his own, save being born poor.

In a society where inadequate educational opportunity can deny the underprivileged any real chance of self-improvement and even the hope of becoming actively participating members of that society, could the church, having noted the need, pass by on the other side?

Some of the most fundamental tenets of the Judeo-Christian religions tradition involve man's concern for his fellow man-the basic concept of the brotherhood of all men as the children of God. This concern of the church today properly comprises both the physical welfare of our citizens and, increasingly, their access to equality of opportunity to develop their God-given capabilities to the fullest.

The other side of this religious concept involves the basic dignity of each individual human being as a child of God made in His image. When we deny any person equality of opportunity on the basis of his economic or social status, we deny the fundamental concept of individual human dignity. To this the church must speak, and to this the Council of Churches of Greater Washington has spoken.

If the church has been engaged in nothing else in the past few decades, it has been engaged in redefining its affirmative answer to the ageold question of Cain: "Am I my brother's keeper?" That affirmative reply is especially relevant where it relates to individuals who cannot singly help themselves, and it acquires realy dynamism when it involves action which will prepare those individuals—will upgrade their capabilities and direct their talents-so that they can achieve a genuine and creative self-sufficiency in our society.

And it is not just college education which is at issue here. As the report of the President's Committee said:

Higher education for those to whom it was previously inaccessible produces consequences far beyond their own use of it. Availability makes a crucial difference in the motivation for learning at all levels and for all ages, generating

hope and self-esteem among individuals and groups previously relegated to inferior status. Presenting models of successful escape from degrading conditions and providing trained leadership for those still struggling to emerge from an unfavorable background, higher education offers the best hope for community progress in our cities' battles against poverty, sickness, unemployment, and crime.

In context then, the Council of Churches is pleading the case of the young people in this year's graduating class and classes of 1970 and 1980. Its request should not seem too unreasonable. It merely pleads with you and the other members of this committee and the Congress to give the District's young people the same opportunities for self-development which your State legislatures have given to the young people in your own home State-the right to an education to match their ability and their motivation, not their pocketbooks.

On behalf of the Council, therefore, I urge the prompt passage by the Senate and enactment into law of this legislation to assure the immediate establishment of both the public 2-year community college and the public 4-year college of the arts and sciences.

Mr. Chairman, I want to submit for printing in the record, as part of the statement of the Council of Churches, the report on this subject which was unanimously approved by the Council's Board of Directors on January 14, 1966.

I should like to emphasize, Mr. Chairman, that the Council takes no position as between the two bills under consideration here today or as to the proper method of selection of the Board of Higher Education. Such problems can best be worked out in the wisdom of the committee members and the staff and the Congress. They are assuredly not the concern of the Council of Churches.

So, although the Council's report mentions H.R. 7395, it should be understood that this is intended to refer equally to both S. 293 and S. 1612, the two bills under consideration here today.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator MORSE. You have made a powerful statement. I am very glad to have it and have it and have the support of the council of churches. Thank you very much.

(The previously mentioned document follows:)

COUNCIL OF CHURCHES OF GREATER WASHINGTON,
Washington, D.C., January 10, 1966.

To: The Governing Committee of the Institute of Church and Society.
From: Milton C. Mapes, Jr., chairman of the Subcommittee on Higher Edu-
cation.

Subject: Report and recommendations on the need for public institutions of higher education in the District of Columbia.

I. THE ISSUES

In reporting my findings on this subject I should commence by stating that I began my investigation of it with considerable skepticism. Although normally an advocate of the maximum education for the maximum number of people, I had serious doubts about several aspects of the problem.

For example, was there a real need? Almost everyone "knows" that today anyone who wants a college education can get one-this is the first and most common argument raised against any need for Federal assistance to education, as I well knew, having put the question to a number of heterogeneous groups in the past few years. Were there really young people in the District who needed post-high-school training and could not obtain it, by one means or another? Did they really constitute any sizable group, and were they "college potential"?

And what about the existing educational institutions at the college level and beyond? There were five well-esteemed and growing universities within the limits of the District-American, Catholic, Georgetown, George Washington, Howard. I knew they had recently established a consortium to provide a unified approach to some of their common problems-couldn't they collectively or individually meet whatever need existed? And what would be their attitude toward the establishment of a publicly supported college system in their midst? Lastly, with the recent closing of the 1st session of the 89th Congress the "education Congress"-hadn't most of the needs in this area been met or at least well attacked by legislation enacted within the past 12 months did the need, even if it had been real until this year, still exist?

A second major question raised in my mind was whether or not the issue of public education was a valid one for church participation. Clearly, education was a great secular issue of far-reaching implications, and there were a number of good reasons why individual citizens might be urged to support this proposal, assuming that the need existed, such as: the place of the District in shaping the national image before the world; the optimum use of human resources; upgrading the Nation's "human capital;" and cutting the crime rate. But was it a proper issue for the church to engage one on which the council should take a formal position?

After all, there was mounting evidence that auto seat belts save lives and thereby prevent much human suffering and loss; yet the institute had declined to take a position on proposed legislation to make them compulsory, on the ground that there was not a valid moral issue involved. Was providing higher education to those who had no easy access to it a real moral issue on which the council should take a stand, and, if so, could it claim a high enough priority on a long list to justify any concentrated expenditure at this time of the council's always limited resources?

These were the questions which were foremost in my mind as I set out to explore this issue, and they have remained at the center of my thinking as I have gotten deeper into it during recent weeks, with the limited time I have had to devote to it. The remainder of this report will consist of factual information and my conclusions, which I submit for the consideration of the governing committee and, if the governing committee should so decide, of the board of directors of the council.

II. CURRENT STATUS OF THE PROPOSAL

In investigating these issues I quickly learned that whether the problem was real or not, it was one which had been competently and thoroughly investigated. Similar proposals had been suggested and considered by various groups and organizations, including congressional committees, since at least 1957. In September 1963 President Kennedy appointed a seven-member committee of impressive qualifications to study the specific question involved here-the need for a public system of higher education in the District of Columbia. This committee made a thorough and detailed investigation of the issue, including public meetings, private discussions with many interested parties and organizations, and extensive staff studies of specific problems involved. Because my report will refer often to the report of this committee, I believe it is pertinent to list here the names and positions of its members:

Dr. Francis S. Chase, chairman, dean, Graduate School of Education, University of Chicago.

Dr. James R. Killian, Jr., chairman of the corporation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. Thomas R. McConnell, chairman, Center for Study of Higher Education, University of California (Berkeley).

Mrs. Agnes Meyer, civic leader and author, Washington, D.C.

Dr. Samuel M. Nabrit, president, Texas Southern University.

Dr. George N. Shuster, former president, Hunter College, assistant to the president, University of Notre Dame.

Dr. Jerome B. Wiesner, former director, office of science and technology, dean of science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. James H. Case, Jr., executive director.

In June 1964 this committee unanimously recommended to President Johnson: 1. The immediate creation of a comprehensive, publicly supported, community (or junior) college;

2. The immediate creation of a college of liberal arts and sciences, also publicly supported, authorized to confer both the baccalaureate and master's degrees, and to absorb the existing District of Columbia Teachers College. The committee also recommended a system of noncompetitive scholarships for local graduates of community colleges and the early development in the District of a center or centers for high-level graduate and post-doctoral studies; these latter proposals will not be discussed here.

On March 18, 1965, President Johnson sent to Congress H.R. 7395, a bill to establish a Board of Higher Education to plan, establish, organize and operate a public community college and a public college of arts and sciences in the District of Columbia, and for other purposes. This bill would establish a Board of Higher Education of 9 to 15 members (with a resident majority) to be appointed by the Commissioners of the District of Columbia. The board would be authorized to develop detailed plans for and to establish, organize and operate in the District of Columbia: (1) a public college, offering a program in the arts and sciences up through the master's degree, and (2) a public community college, including programs of vocational study, leading to the associate of arts degree. A number of local organizations have pledged their support to this legislation, and the District of Columbia Citizens for Better Public Education, Inc., has been leading this support. The consortium of local universities has yet to determine a public position on the matter, but at least one of the university presidents and the head of the local Catholic women's college have announced their full support, and there is reason to hope the leadership of the other universities will soon recognize the urgency of the need.

No hearings have been held on H.R. 7395 to date, but it is expected that both Houses of Congress will hold hearings early in the next session.

III. REPORT ON THE ISSUES

A. The need for the community college

The report of the President's Committee points out the general need of our society, in an age of increasing technology, for increasingly higher skills and training and the growing acute shortage of skilled craftsmen and technicians of all kinds. Experience throughout the country has proven the growing effectiveness and popularity of the 2-year community college as the ideal mechanism to solve this problem. With the flexibility which it offers, it can not only satisfy the technological need but also give sufficient attention to liberal educational requirements to prepare its graduates for well-rounded community participation. Similarly, the Committee noted the decreasing opportunities for young people with limited educational achievements: "We are building massive problems for the future-in welfare, unemployment, poverty, and crime-unless we provide a maximum of opportunity for the youth of today to achieve the highest level of education of which they are capable." This view is supported by the Skill Survey of the Washington Metropolitan Area, prepared in 1963 by the U.S. Employment Service for the District of Columbia, which stated, "The labor market cannot absorb any increase in unskilled labor," and added, "the more education and training a young person has, the better job he can expect to get. Some training past the high school level is desired by most employers."

In a more definitive vein Roscoe Drummond summed up the present situation in his syndicated column of December 5 with the comment:

"For the first time since the industrial revolution there are more jobs in the United States looking for workers than there are workers to fill them ***. "What we now have in the United States, on the basis of the latest studies, is this:

"Nearly 3 million jobs seeking and searching for qualified workers.

"Nearly 3 million unemployed, most of whom are not qualified-do not have the work skills to take the jobs that are open."

This is the gap which the community college is ideally equipped to fill, and it is a deficiency which is going to become increasingly serious in the Washington area if such an institution is not established immediately.

In defining the nature of the community college whose establishment it was supporting, the report listed its purposes, which included training for responsible citizenship, enrichment of the personal lives of the students, adult education, and preparation of students for further university education. The Committee further commented, "While technical education, broadly conceived, is a unique function of the proposed community college, the Committee strongly believes that it should be a comprehensive, not a technical institute."

Assuming the establishing of the type of institution it envisioned, with tuition and fees maintained at a nominal level for District residents, the Committee summed up its studies of the need in the following terms:

"The studies by the Committee establish that there will be no lack of applicants for admission. For example, answers to a questionnaire addressed in 1962 to seniors in the District's public high schools indicated that more than 55 percent (1,782 students) would be interested in a local public community college if one were available. A still larger percentage-72, or 2,350 students-indicated that in the event they were not accepted for admission to the college or university of their choice, they would apply for admission to a public community college if it existed. Answers to the Committee's questionnaire in January 1964 indicated that about 720 of the seniors who do not plan to continue their education would change their plans and attend a public community college if one were available. Taking everything into account, the Committee envisages an annual entering class of about 1,400 students during the early years of the community college. The number will grow steadily."

These estimates are probably conservative. There would be a number of nonresident students willing and anxious to pay reasonable tuition fees for the opportunity the college would present. As the report notes, there is a need among the District's suburban neighbors especially in Virginia-for educational services of the type the college would offer. A recent article in the Reader's Digest entitled, "Junior Colleges-Hope For the Future," commented:

"The United States has 710 junior colleges, with 20 to 30 new ones opening each year. As soon as the new schools open, they are swamped with applications for admission. For example, Florida's Miami-Dade Junior College, opened in 1960, now has 14,000 students. Cuyahoga Community College in Cleveland, which started in 1963, expects an enrollment of 8,500 this fall."

B. The need for a college of liberal arts and sciences

The present District of Columbia Teachers College has supplied a third of all the public school teachers in the District, some 1,673 teachers during 1963. It is, nevertheless, grossly inadequate to the need. Its "campus" consists of two buildings more than a half-century old separated by a mile of slum and semislum area of the District. Their third floors presently condemned as a fire hazard and hence unusable, these two buildings housed the two segregated Wilson and Minor Teachers Colleges prior to their merger into the present institution in 1955 and were originally built for the two normal schools which preceded them from 1930 back to the years before World War I.

These facilities are now incredibly inadequate, and in recent years enrollment has declined seriously. The number of graduates dropped 44 percent-from 123 to 69-between 1958 and 1963, despite the burgeoning need for teachers. In 1962 the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education announced that it was withdrawing accreditation from the college because "the prospects of improving the facilities, maintaining a competent faculty, and attracting an able student body were not good enough to justify its continuation"-and this is the only publicly supported institution of higher learning in the Nation's Capital. The Committee recommended that District of Columbia Teachers College be merged immediately with the new 4-year college upon its establishment.

Would there be students available for such a liberal arts college? After thorough study, including a 10-percent sample of the June 1964 graduating class of District of Columbia residents, the Committee stated:

"The Committee concludes, therefore, that the college of arts and sciences could be expected, even at the outset, to meet the need and desire for higher education of at least 600 District secondary school graduates each year who are 'college-able' but who can afford to continue in school only in a publicly supported institution. The Committee is also strongly convinced, as it has already stated, that denials of educational opportunity of this magnitude must not be allowed to continue."

The Committee also considered two other alternatives, the granting of scholarships to District residents to attend institutions already in existence and the expansion of Howard University to absorb the increased load. It concluded that neither of these proposals was satisfactory, the second because Howard considers its mission to be national in scope and is increasingly expanding its mission to contribute to the education of foreign students, particularly from the countries of Africa and Southeast Asia.