University of Virginia Library

Long-range Plan

When in February the President
asked a high-level government committee
to prepare a long-range plan
for the support of higher education,
he laid down his aims: elimination
of race and income as bars to
advanced study; efficient use of
educational resources; promotion
of high quality: the blending of
support for students with that for
institutions; the safeguarding of the
independence of colleges and universities,
and the continuance of
support for them from state and
private sources. A few years ago
this committee might have been
concerned with issues that have
faded considerably - the controversy
over government aid to
church-related colleges and fear of
federal control. If today the real
issues are different, they are not
less far-reaching or controversial. If
there is to be federal aid that is not
tied to specific uses as it is today
(building of classrooms, libraries,
research work for the government),
should it go in equal measure to all
institutions? Private institutions,
which in general spend more on
each student than the public ones
do, insist that there must be an
allowance for quality.

As examples of other questions
involved, Mr. Harold Howe, the
Commissioner of Education, asks
whether federal aid should be confined
to existing institutions (which
would perpetuate any defects or
omissions) or whether it should be
used in part to aunc new ones.
Perhaps the geographical distribution
of higher education needs
changing, with more opportunities
in the metropolitan areas where
most people live today. How can
the government make sure that all
sections of society, including minority
groups, get their fair share?
Are more graduate schools needed
and is there not a risk that, if more
were created (and the money for
them spread more thinly), some
would be second-rate?

Those who know the political
process suspect that any additional
aid to federal education is almost
bound to be spread evenly (and
meagerly) over the whole country
(indeed, unless every state is to get
something, there is unlikely to be
enough political steam to push the
Bill through Congress). Many experts
would consider this regrettable.
Mr. Pifer suggests deliberate
discrimination in favour of the institutions
which are already distinguished,
to create a group of "national
universities;" these would
provide superb training for professionals
of all kinds. Mr. Clark Kerr,
now chairman of the Carnegie Commission
on the Future of Higher
Education, agrees that there must
be incentives for the improvement
of quality and that the growing
number of American universities of
world rank is among the country's
greatest resources. On the other
side of the coin there is some doubt
about whether the federal aid now
going to "developing institutions"
- chiefly the small and poor Negro
colleges in the South - is likely to
do much good.

Apart from giving block grants,
the ways in which the federal government
can help are roughly
four: tax credits to parents, grants
to the states, more of what is called
categorical aid (in categories laid
down by Congress) and more assistance
for students. Not many
college administrators favour the
first two. Tax credits would be
costly to the Treasury, of no direct
aid to the universities and would
help the rich most, the poor least.
Grants to the states would concentrate
too much power in state
hands. More categorical aid has its
proponents; it has been responsive
to quality and has supported diversity.
In fact, these are the major
charges against it.