SUMMARY OF NEW PROVISIONS IN THE ADMINISTRATION'S VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

PROPOSAL

GENERAL

The draft bill incorporates the provisions of the administration's vocational education legislation proposal (title V, part A, of S. 580 and H.R. 3000), as mod.fied by H.R. 4955 as reported by the House Education and Labor Committee but with new provisions principally designed to broaden the opportunity for Vocational education for youths of high school age, particularly in communities having substantial numbers of youths who have completed or left high school and need vocational training to equip them for gainful employment.

INCREASE IN APPROPRIATION AUTHORIZATIONS

The draft bill increases the appropriation authorizations in H.R. 4955 frc: $45 million, $90 million, $135 million, and $180 million, to $108 million, $1 million, $198 million, and $243 million for the fiscal years 1964, 1965, 1966, azd 1967, respectively-an increase of $63 million over the amounts authorized section 2 of that bill. In addition, the draft bill authorizes $15 million for the fiscal year 1964 and such sums as may be necessary for the next 4 years, f grants for the establishment and operation of experimental residential vocation education schools. It also authorizes an additional $50 million for fiscal 194 and necessary sums for the next 5 years for grants to States for work-study pr grams to enable needy youths of high school age to commence or continue fu time vocational education programs.

Thus, in effect, the draft bill adds an additional $150 million to the $23 milli originally recommended by the administration for expansion and improvemer: of vocational education (title V, part A, of S. 580 and H.R. 3000). Since H.R 4955, as reported b ythe House committee, authorizes $45 million for fiscal 19 (instead of the $23 million originally recommended by the President), the effect of the draft bill is to increase the fiscal 1964 authorization in the reported House bill by $128 million and by corresponding amounts in the next 4 years.

FEDERAL PROJECT GRANTS

The House-reported bill, as well as the administration bill, sets aside 5 percent of the sums appropriated each year for Federal project grants to develop, demo strate, and evaluate special vocational education programs for youths who, by reason of academic, socioeconomic, or other handicaps, would not be able to sa ceed in the regular programs. The draft bill increases this percentage from to 15 percent and broadens the purpose of these grants to include projects meet the special vocational education needs of communities having substantial numbers of youths who have dropped out of school or who are unemployed.

EXPERIMENTAL RESIDENTIAL SCHOOLS

The draft bill authorizes $15 million for fiscal 1964 and such sums as Congres determines for the next 4 fiscal years for Federal grants to establish and operate residential schools to provide vocational education to youths of high school age who need full-time study on a residential basis in order to beneft fully from vocational training. In making these grants, the Commissioner will give special consideration to the needs of large urban areas having substantia. numbers of youths who have dropped out of high school or are unemployed

INCREASED EMPHASIS ON POST HIGH SCHOOL VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

The administration bill, as well as H.R. 4955, required the States to use at least 25 percent of each annual allotment to provide vocational education to youths who have left or completed high school and to construct area vocational eduaction schools primarily designed to meet the training needs of these youths The draft bill increases this percentage from 25 to 40 percent for the first 5 years of the program.

WORK-STUDY PROGRAMS

The draft bill adds a new title II authorizing $50 million for fiscal 1964 and necessary sums for each of the next 4 years for grants to States to enable loca

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̈viding a vocational education program) to give work assistance to students in full-time attendance in vocational education courses. The purpose of this title is to encourage and enable youths between the ages of 15 and 20-who otherwise would probably drop out of high school or discontinue their education after completing high school and be unable to find jobs-to continue in school in order to take the vocational training they need to equip them for gainful employment. These programs would provide part-time employment, of not more than 15 hours a week, in public schools or other public agencies. Monthly and annual earnings could not exceed $45 and $350, respectively, unless the student attended a school away from home, in which case the limits would be $60 per month and $500 per academic year. Youths would be selected for work assistance on the basis of their need for financial aid and their need for vocational education.

MISCELLANEOUS

The draft bill also reintroduces the per capita income factor in allotting Federal funds among the States for vocational education programs, as recommended by the administration, and makes it clear that such programs can include instruction related to the occupation for which the student is being trained or necessary for him to benefit from vocational education.

(Staff note. On July 10, 1963, Senator Prouty addressed the following questions to the Office of Education. These questions, together with the responses of Commissioner Francis Keppel, were ordered. printed at this point by the chairman.)

NATIONAL DEFENSE EDUCATION ACT TITLE II LOANS

Section 205 of the National Defense Education Act now provides that student loans may be made to graduate and undergraduate students. S. 580 would make professional students eligible for such loans.

Question No. 1. Would a man going to a theological school be eligible for a student loan as a professional student under the terms of the de bill?

Answer. Professional students and graduate students have always been eligible for National Defense Education Act loans under section 205 of the act. S. 580 would provide for higher ceilings ($2,500) on annual loans for graduate and professional students, as opposed to the $1,000 annual ceiling which presently exists and which would be retained for undergraduate borrowers.

Theological schools presently participate in the National Defense Education Act student loan program. If a given theological school is eligible to participate in the student loan program, then any regularly enrolled full-time student of that institution is eligible for a loan. Question No. 2. What do the words "professional student" encompass?

Answer. The term "professional student" generally means a student enrolled in a professional school; i.e., medicine, dentistry, law, architecture, osteopathy, and the like, as contrasted with the term "graduate student," which is usually taken to mean a student possessing a bachelor's degree who is enrolled in a postgraduate program. The terms are both included in S. 580 to assure full coverage of the graduate population since, for the first time, loan ceilings would be different at the graduate and undergraduate levels.

Question No. 3. I assume that a medical student would be a profes

would be eligible for national defense student loans. Is that correct?

Answer. Medical students have always been eligible for Nati Defense Education Act loans. S. 580 would provide higher as loan ceilings for these students.

Question No. 4. Is it not true also that under the health profess education assistance bill which recently passed the House of Re sentatives, potential physicians, dentists, and public health perso would be eligible for student loans under a program provided by t bill?

Answer. Under the provisions of H.R. 12, students enrolled full in courses leading to the degrees of doctor of medicine, dentistry osteopathy would be eligible for loans. Students in public h programs would not be eligible for loans.

Question No. 5. Why is it that the administration wants pr sional students to be eligible for student loans under both the Nati Defense Education Act and under the proposed Health Profess Education Act?

Answer. If the H.R. 12 loan program (Health Professions Ed tion Assistance Act-pt. C) were established, only those studerts rolled for the degrees of doctor of medicine, dentistry, and osteopa could borrow under that program. These students would no lo be eligible for the National Defense Education Act program. other students in health fields such as graduate nursing, hospital ministration, virusology, medical social work, pharmacy, pod and the like would continue to be eligible under the National D Education Act program.

Further, the H.K. 12 program provides a longer grace period be repayments (3 years) to cover internship and residency and a hig rate of interest, as fixed by the Secretary of the Treasury, that provided by the National Defense Education Act.

Thus, the two programs complement each other and would the entire graduate and professional student community without o lap.

Question No. 6. Could not the problem be handled by simply an ing the National Defense Education Act? This would put the fessional students on the same par with undergraduate and grad

students.

Answer. The acute need for training additional numbers of do and dentists led the Department to support a separately earmar student loan program, as developed in H.R. 12. This new prog would be administered solely by colleges of medicine, dentistry, osteopathy to service the specialized needs of their students. Question No. 7. The forgiveness feature in the National Def Education Act clearly provides that up to one-half of a studen may be canceled for service as a public elementary or secondary teacher at the rate of 10 percent a year for each year of tea service.

During the last Congress, the administration recommended the forgiveness feature be expanded to benefit borrowers who subseque taught in institutions of higher education. However, last year administration did not advocate loan cancellation for those borrow

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enator Keating and I proposed legislation to give loan forgiveness or teaching in private schools, and I am happy to see that the adminstration has come around to this point of view.

Is the administration absolutely committed to fight for the extenion of the forgiveness feature to those who teach in private schools? Answer. Yes. One of the prime purposes of S. 580 is to continue o increase the supply of qualified teachers, at all levels and in all ectors of education. Information for fiscal year 1962 on the National Defense Education Act loan program shows that, as of June 1962, Imost a quarter of a million prospective teachers had already borowed under the fund. For every 100 borrowers who complete colege, nearly 40 immediately enter teaching. As a matter of equity and sound educational policy, we certainly believe in the advisability of extending the cancellation provision to all teachers at all levels. Question No. 8. Under S. 580, if a person goes to school first, gets a oan and then teaches, he gets a 10-percent forgiveness for each year of eaching.

On the other hand, if he teaches first and then goes to school, he gets 1 loan forgiveness at the rate of 25 percent per year for each year he teaches.

What is your justification for doing less in the way of loan forgiveness for the man who enters the teaching field than you do for the man who is already in it?

Answer. Both persons receive the same amount of cancellation; that s, up to 50 percent of the total amount borrowed. The only difference is in the rate of cancellation-10 percent per each of 5 teaching years for the beginning teacher, and 25 percent per year for each of 2 teaching years for the experienced teacher. This difference was included to assist the older teacher, who generally has heavier financial obligations than the person just out of college, to take a year off from teaching to return to full-time academic study.

Questions Nos. 9 and 10. It has been my view that the loan forgiveness feature of the National Defense Education Act should be broader to provide partial loan cancellation to those who demonstrate excellent academic achievement by ranking in the top quarter or top third of their class.

Would you favor adding such an incentive to the national defense student loan program?

Would not such an incentive encourage academic excellence?

Answer. No, in both instances. We view the National Defense Education Act loan program as an extremely broad form of basic student financial assistance, available to all qualified students who have financial need of loans in order to complete their college education. To introduce forgiveness on an academic class rank basis in a loan system of this size would, in addition to involving untold administrative complexities, be both inequitable and unfair-inequitable because the standards for academic achievement vary widely among the colJeges-unfair because it would place a larger burden for loan repayment on the student of average ability. Finally, there is little evidence to indicate that the promise of a loan cancellation several years hence would have much influence upon the current academic performance of

Question No. 11. Now there is a $250,000 ceiling on the amount of Federal contributions that can be made toward the student loan furd of any given college. S. 580 would remove that ceiling. Have yo contacted our smaller colleges, both private and public, to see how they feel about the possible removal of the $250,000 ceiling!

Is there any danger that removal of this ceiling would mean the the larger institutions can grab up a disproportionate share of the loan funds?

Answer. This year 123 colleges and universities have filed approve requests for 1964 Federal funds beyond the $250,000 ceiling and some 1,420 institutions have filed requests below this level. Each reques is judged on its own merits under standards of reasonableness, so that no group of institutions either by virtue of large enrollments or high cost could acquire a disproportionate share of available funds. T present ceiling simply prevents our giving fair treatment to thos institutions whose reasonable requests have been approved above the existing ceiling.

The American Council on Education surveyed its membership o the removal of the ceiling and reported virtually unanimous suppor of this amendment from large and small, public and private, colleges

Questions Nos. 12 and 13. Last year the administration supporte a bill which provided that over a 5-year period there would be granted up to 212,500 scholarships at a cost of $148,750,000 for the first year of each scholarship awarded, and in the event each scholarship gran was awarded for the full 4 years of the college course, sufficient funds to finance such awards up to a possible total of $595 million.

This year the administration comes along in S. 580 and asks for s study to determine whether there is a need for a Federal program of scholarship grants to aid students.

Does this mean that the administration previously advocated scholarship program that could cost $595 million without having adequate data to justify such a program?

Or does it mean that the study proposed by S. 580 will not be a study as such but rather an attempt to gather evidence in a course of action already agreed upon?

support

of

the

Answer. The administration's scholarship proposal in the Sith Congress was based on a variety of studies conducted by organizations at the local, State, and National level-all of which pointed up the continued talent loss of capable students who could not jump financial hurdle between high school and college. This condition still exists, and to help alleviate it the administration has proposed to supplement the National Defense Education Act student loan program with a work-study program. What we need now is a comprehensive national study of the factors, financial and otherwise, which prevent capable students from entering or completing college. The findings of such a study will be invaluable not only to the administration and Congress, but to the Nation's educational community and to millions of parents and their children.

QUESTIONS REGARDING PART B OF TITLE I (STUDENT LOAN INSURANCE)

Part B of the bill would establish a program of Federal insurance for loans to students attending institutions of higher education if made