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Mr. Chairman, in the time available to me today it is patently el impossible to do justice to all of the components of S. 580, but I will try to illustrate these Federal policies with reference to the several parts of your bill.

In the light of the President's June 19 message on civil rights and job opportunities, I would like to give special attention to the impact of the proposed educational program upon our No. 1 domestic problem-equal rights and equal opportunities for all our citizens. For, as the President pointed out, the enjoyment of civil rights is largely a function of employment opportunities while the availability of e employment opportunities is largely a function of educational attainment: "There is little value in a Negro's obtaining the right to be admitted to hotels and restaurants if he has no cash in his pocket and no job." But the exceedingly high rates of Negro unemploymentmore than twice that of white workers-cannot be substantially reduced until Negro educational opportunities are massively expanded and Negro manpower skills are drastically upgraded to meet modern technological requirements.

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In this context, we are hopeful that the Congress will give special attention to the administration's January 29 proposals and last week's amendments, which propose to (1) modernize and expand the Nation's vocational education programs and (2) launch a Federal-State cooperative venture to eliminate the scourge of adult illiteracy. We ask this not merely in the name of equal rights and equal opportunities for our Negro citizens, but in the name of every taxpayer and citizen who desires to see his country both strong and prosperous. As the President pointed out:

Although the proportion of Negroes without adequate education and training is far higher than the proportion of whites, none of these problems is restricted to Negroes alone. This Nation is in critical need of a massive upgrading in its education and training effort for all citizens. In an age of rapidly changing technology, that effort is failing millions of our youth.

Nor, in the President's view, is there any question that we can afford the legislation proposed in S. 580 to strengthen American education "at every level from grade school through graduate school": the loss of 1 year's income due to unemployment is more than the total cost of 12 years of education through high school; and, when welfare and other social costs are added, it is clear that failure to take these steps will cost us far more than their enactment. There is no more profitable investment than education, and no greater waste than ill-trained youth.

Title V-A of S. 580 would redirect, expand, and modernize programs of Federal financial assistance in vocational education so as to assure that vocational training offered by our schools will be both of high quality and realistic in terms of the Nation's projected manpower needs and job opportunities.

As I recently stated in testimony before the House General Subcommittee on Education (the full text of that statement on vocational education has been made available to the committee and for th record):

under present trends some 30 to 40 percent of the youngsters now in the fifth grade will probably not be graduated from high school gunless we undertake vigorous reforms. They will go to work-or vainly look for work-without a high school diploma. They should have the opportunity,during their too-brief

period of schooling, to acquire at least the rudiments of some skill or trade. This applies also to most of the other 60 percent who, we now estimate, will complete high school only. About half of these boys and girls will go to work or keep house, or both, after graduation. The others will enter college or some post-high school educational institution, but less than half will acquire a college degree. To put it another way, less than 20 percent of today's fifth graders will become college graduates—the physicians, scientists, lawyers, and teachers of tomorrow. A large number of those who do not complete college will join our nonprofessional working population-in business, in the trades, in industry, in the service occupations and on the farms. Their schooling should prepare them to start their working life.

The training to be supported under the Vocational Education Act of 1963 (title V-A of S. 580) would be focused upon needs of high school students, persons who have completed or discontinued their formal education and are preparing to enter the labor market, adults now employed but in need of upgrading in their skills or of learning new skills, and young men and women with special educational handicaps. Our proposal also calls for the construction and equipping of urgently required area vocational education school facilities and for increased emphasis on services to improve the quality of vocational education programs, including inservice teacher training, teacher supervision, program evaluation, demonstration, development of instructional materials and administration.

The new draft proposals submitted to the Congress last week would supplement the vocational education programs proposed earlier in S. 580 in five ways in order to accelerate the rate at which our fellow citizens and particularly our minority groups in urban and other areas suffering from a high incidence of school dropouts and youth unemployment-may gain marketable job skills and, consequently, full membership in the community of trained manpower needed by our dynamic economy:

(1) Appropriations authorized for fiscal year 1964 are raised from $23 million to $108 million.

(2) Funds earmarked for postsecondary education and construction of area vocational schools are raised from 25 to 40 percent.

(3) The Commissioner of Education is authorized to make grants to States for the establishment of experimental residential vocational schools. For this purpose the sum of $15 million is authorized for fiscal year 1964.

(4) Funds for grants by the Commissioner of Education for special projects to meet the needs of communities with substantial youth unemployment and school dropouts (as well as to meet the needs of youth with academic, socioeconomic or other handicaps to learning) would be increased from 5 to 15 percent of the Vocational education appropriations.

(5) A work-study program for high school age students enrolled in full-time vocational education programs is proposed in order to encourage and assist youths who might otherwise drop out of school to continue their education and equip themselves for gainful employment.

These amendments, Mr. Chairman, represent substantial increases in the national investment in vocational education, but they are small in terms of the goals to be achieved and the cost to us all if we do not

Exactly the same is true about what can only be termed the national disgrace of adult illiteracy and adult educational deprivation. In the world's wealthiest country it is shameful to have to acknowledge that we have about 23 million Americans aged 18 and older who have completed less than 8 years of schooling, including 8 million adults aged 25 and older with less than a fifth-grade education. These cold and impersonal statistics are only now coming to be appreciated as representing some of the most critical problems faced by our society: persistent unemployment, dependency on welfare payments, rejection from military service, delinquency and crime, as well as the probability of blighted and arid lives, impoverished by the loss of opportunities to learn and to grow socially and intellectually.

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I would greatly appreciate having my recent statement on this problem made a part of my testimony at this point. I believe that the committee will also wish to study the accompanying Department of Health, Education, and Welfare study, "Limited Educational Attainment" which, better than my words at this point, indicates the extent and consequences of this most depressing fact about American educational achievement.

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President Kennedy's message on civil rights and job opportunities further relates this problem to my earlier remarks, and I quote him:

A distressing number of unemployed Negroes are illiterate and unskilled, refugees from farm automation, unable to do simple computations or even to read a help-wanted advertisement. Too many are equipped to work only in those occupations where technology and other changes have reduced the need for manpower as farm labor or manual labor, in mining or construction. Too many have attended segregated schools that were so lacking in adequate funds and faculty as to be unable to produce qualified job applicants. And too many who have attended nonsegregated schools dropped out for lack of incentive, guidance or progress. The unemployment rate for those adults with less than 5 years of schooling is around 10 percent; it has consistently been double the prevailing rate for high school graduates; and studies of public welfare recipients show a shockingly high proportion of parents with less than a primary school education.

I hope, therefore, that the committee will agree with the President's recommendation that a solution of this problem well deserves the modest level of financial support proposed last week, namely, $20 million, instead of the $5 million originally earmarked in the 1964 budget for the pilot, demonstration and instructional programs authorized in title VI-B of S. 580.

Turning now to other provisions of S. 580, in their basic order, let us look at "Title I: Expansion of Opportunities for Individuals in Higher Education." Our democratic ideals as well as our intellectual, economic, scientific, and cultural progress require that every individual have an opportunity for the most advanced training of which he is capable. Unfortunately, the rising cost of a college education is preventing many students of modest means from attaining that important personal goal while shortages of highly trained manpower have become a characteristic part of our national economic problems. The committee will note from the chart and table attached to my testimony how markedly college costs have risen and are projected to rise; in public institutions, for example, from a low of $730 in 1930 to some $2,400 in 1980. In the school year 1962-63, the average direct cost

2 See p. 2378.

* See p. 2384.

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of attending college is approximately $1,480 in public institutions and $2,240 in private institutions. Comparison of these average costs with the current annual median family income of $5,700 indicates immediately that a college education represents an extremely large outlay for most American families. As a major item of expenditure it is second only to the purchase of a home.

It is no wonder, then, that each year between 100,000 and 200,000 able high school graduates who have high aptitude and interest for college fail to continue their education, many because of financial inability to do so. According to the 1962 findings of the Office of Education-financed Project Talent, 30 percent of the high school seniors in the 80 to 90 academic percentile of their class and 43 percent of those in the 70 to 80 percentile failed to enter college.

Moreover, enrollment figures indicate that approximately 40 percent of all students who begin college withdraw before graduation. Many of these are talented but leave college because of financial hardships. Surely this is an intolerable loss to the Nation of urgently needed college-trained manpower. In the case of every American youngster with college capabilities who is denied the opportunity of starting or completing a college education, we not only limit the individual opportunities which come with greater education, but we also retard our scientific advance, slow our economic growth, and deplete our reservoir of future leadership.

The Congress, through the National Defense Education Act, has performed an incalculable service in encouraging and assisting colleges and universities to establish student loan funds to assist talented but needy students to complete their education. A few statistics on the achievements of title II of the National Defense Education Act may be of interest to the committee. Through fiscal year 1962, over 363,000 students borrowed approximately $220 million from the student loan funds of 1,468 colleges and universities. Almost a quarter of a million prospective teachers borrowed under the program, and $1.3 million of loan principal and interest was canceled for actual teaching service. During the rather brief period of 4 years, loan repayment surpassed $5 million, the rate of repayment well exceeded that required by law, and losses to the Federal Government were negligible.

This is not to say that the student loan program does not have problems for, as this committee knows from its diligent examination of the National Defense Education Act in 1961, the present $90 million authorization is far below actual and projected demands for student borrowing. The present restriction of Federal capital contributions to $250,000 per institution per year means that, in fiscal 1964, 123 colleges in 40 States and the District of Columbia will be unable to receive the full amount of their approved and reasonable requests for Federal funds. Because of this institutional ceiling alone. these 123 colleges will lack some $16.5 million and, consequently, will be forced to refuse loans to approximately 38,000 students and/or to reduce the size of loans to other students. Even without a technical amendment to remove this restriction our colleges in the coming year could use at least $109 million-$19 million more than the authorized ceiling of $90 million. Mr. Chairman, with your permission, I would like the record to show at this point some basic and detailed facts

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about the National Defense Education Act student loan program * and about the restrictions to which I have just referred.

Just as a college or university would reject the idea that a student loan program is the only effective form of student financial assistance, so should Congress, in my judgment, not regard the National Defense Education Act student loan program as a complete solution to the growing problems of student financial aid. To accept loan funds as the only answer would mean that, generally, those going to college from the lowest income groups would graduate from college with the greatest burden of debt. There is a psychological "peril point" of indebtedness which college student aid counselors frequently encounter among many students from low-income families. To this group of students and their parents, an indebtedness of several thousand dollars is frightening. Too often the student becomes discouraged and withdraws from college "temporarily" in order to earn some money before continuing his college education. But many of those who withdraw "temporarily" never return. A work-study program, augmenting a loan program, would permit many of these students to complete the requirements for their college degree without exceeding what, in their opinion, is a manageable level of indebtedness. With the funds proposed in S. 580 and assuming average annual undergraduate earnings of $500 (50 percent federally financed), some 90,000 students would benefit from the administration's work-study proposal in the first year of operation. To summarize other advantages of the work-study program proposed in title I, part C: It would encourage high school graduates with ability and financial need to continue their education bevond the high school. It would reduce the number of students with demonstrated college ability who now withdraw for financial reasons. It would enable students to gain educational advantages from their work experience, because of the nature of the work itself and because of their close association with college faculties and staff, while earning a portion of their college expenses. It would provide earning opportunities to students attending colleges in rural communities where off-campus work is scarce.

Finally, the work-study program would also contribute to a better utilization of the increasingly limited number of college teachers, with a corresponding improvement in college teaching as a result. Overworked teachers of freshman classes could be provided with seniors or graduate students majoring in the subject to read papers and correct examinations. Graduate students could provide assistance in laboratory classes in the sciences and engineering. Students in English or business administration could gain valuable experience by working for the university press or for the finance or publications offices.

It is also becoming abundantly clear that many families of middleupper income with several children to send to college at about the same time are finding it increasingly difficult to meet the costs of college out of current income. These families are not usually eligible for loan or scholarship aid under the income limitations applied by most colleges. On the other hand, they are typically credit worthy and accustomed to assuming large financial obligations. Since the brainpower of their children may contribute as much to the national welfare as that of less privileged children, the President has proposed a new program of federally insured commercial loans for college students.