The Crisis (Cont'd.)

U.S. colleges and universities may spend millions for research, but there is one subject they consistently neglect: themselves. It was not until 1949 that the Association of American Universities finally set up a twelve-man Commission* to make a thorough investigation of the financial crisis in U.S. higher education. Last week the commission's long-awaited final reports were published by Columbia University Press--Financing Higher Education in the United States, by the commission's Executive Director, Economist John D. Millett of Columbia, and the 'Nature and Needs of Higher Education, by the full commission.

With funds from both the Rockefeller Foundation and Carnegie Corporation, the commission and its staff studied every aspect of the crisis, from student fees and federal aid to the size of campus coal bills. Their findings are the first complete picture of just what U.S. colleges and universities are up against.

Paper Prosperity. At first glance, says the commission, campus incomes might seem to indicate a glowing prosperity. Gifts from private sources have gone up from $22 million in 1930 to nearly $104 million in 1950. Federal grants have jumped from $15 to $195 million, and the endowment capital of private institutions (more than $2.1 billion) is now 75% greater than it was in 1930. All in all, the nation's accredited institutions are getting almost $1.7 billion a year--a princely $1.2 billion more than in 1930.

But for all this paper prosperity, U.S. campuses are in real trouble. The rising costs of education have far outstripped its growing income. Examples: libraries are spending five times as much (nearly $53 million a year) as they were in 1930; student services (e.g., counseling, psychological testing, etc.) have helped to double administrative costs to $81 per student a year. Says the commission: "It can almost be said that the success of higher education has been its financial undoing."

Actually, the chief culprit is not success but inflation. In the last ten years, building costs have jumped 100-200%, and the cost of operating a campus has just about tripled. In 1950, U.S. campuses were getting $572 in income per student, only $345 in 1940. But in terms of 1940 dollars, this really meant a drop of $20. Only some public universities and junior colleges have managed to hold their own.

How to Economize. How much more money do the nation's campuses need? That, says the commission, depends upon their goals. If they wish merely to equal their pre-inflation income per student as of 1940, they will need $200 million more a year. If they want to raise faculty salaries, now lagging 40% behind the rise in cost of living, they will need another $110 million. If they also want to prepare adequately for an estimated 1960 enrollment of 2,500,000, they will need at least $3.5 billion over the next seven years for their physical plants alone, and they should have an additional $226 million for scholarships.

The commission offers no neatly packaged plan for paying this staggering bill, but it does make a few suggestions. For one thing, U.S. higher education must economize. In one library of 180,000 volumes, investigators discovered that 60,000 books had not been used in the past five years and that 20.000 had not been out since 1925. Many colleges are using their plants to only a fraction of their capacity, and almost all are trying to give too many courses. Instead of trying to be all things to all men, campuses should divide their specialties, cooperate with one another in exchangng students, and teachers, and in using common facilities.

New Sources. But no matter how far U.S. campuses go in slashing their budgets, they will still need more money and they will need to streamline their methods of getting it. Among the commission's suggestions:

P:I Research contracts should be made to cover all expenses. Though sponsored research from business and Government has jumped from $20 to $225 million since 1940, contracts usually cover only direct expenses, and the campus itself must still pay the overhead.

P: Education must press for a definite military manpower policy. The rise and fall of enrollments and the national confusion about student deferments have seriously harassed the colleges, for "no institution knows from year to year what commitments it can make."

P: Tuitions should be raised in some instances. Though student fees have gone up 75% in the last ten years, they have still not reached their reasonable limit.

P: U.S. campuses should join state or regional groups to solicit funds from new sources: corporations (which still give only about one-tenth of 1% of their net income to higher education), alumni funds, labor unions. In terms of 1940 dollars, state governments have increased their support of higher education by only 6%. They could easily increase this amount by 50% without adding more than 4% to their budgets.

Of all the sources of income available, however, the commission firmly rejects the most obvious--and the most dangerous. Warns the commission: "We as a nation should call a halt at this time to the introduction of new programs of direct federal aid to colleges and universities. We also believe it undesirable for the Government to expand the scope of its scholarship aid to individual students . . . [lest] the freedom of higher education . . . be lost."

*The twelve: Provost Paul H. Buck of Harvard; Lawyers Laird Bell of Chicago and A. Crawford Greene of San Francisco; President W. H. Harrison of International Tel & Tel; Board Chairman H. W. Prentis Jr. of Armstrong Cork; former Acting President Frank D. Fackenthal of Columbia University; Presidents Detlev W. Bronk of Johns Hopkins, Carter Davidson of Union College, Lee A. DuBridge of CalTech, Frederick A. Middlebush of the University of Missouri, J. E. Wallace Sterling of Stanford, and Henry M. Wriston of Brown.

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