Equalizing Educational Opportunities Beyond the Secondary School [Reprint 2014 ed.] 9780674592643

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THE INGLIS LECTURESHIP
EQUALIZING EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES BEYOND THE SECONDARY SCHOOL

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INGLIS IN TRENDS

LECTURES

SECONDARY

IN

AMERICAN

EDUCATION

SECONDARY

EDUCATION.

By

Leonard V. Koos. 1925. $1.00. OPPORTUNITY

AND

ACCOMPLISHMENT

EDUCATION. B y Paul H. Hanus. Do

AMERICANS

REALLY

Abraham Flexner. THE

UNIQUE

VALUE

SECONDARY

EDUCATION ?

CHARACTER

OF

AMERICAN

EDUCATION

AND

SECONDARY

1928. $1.00.

INDUSTRIALISM.

George S. Counts. 1929. Out of print. THE GREAT INVESTMENT. B y Thomas H. 1930. $1.50. THE

WAY

OUT

John Dewey. REALISM

IN

By

1927. $1.00.

EDUCATION. B y Charles H. Judd. SECONDARY

IN

1926. $1.00.

OF

EDUCATIONAL

By

Briggs.

CONFUSION.

By

1931. Out of print.

AMERICAN

Setchel Learned.

EDUCATION.

By

William

1932. Out of print.

T H E EVOLVING C O M M O N SCHOOL.

By Henry C.

Mor-

rison. 1933. $1.00. THE

DILEMMA

OF D E M O C R A C Y .

1934. $1.00. THE CARE OF THE PUPIL. 1935. $1.00.

By

By

I.

L.

Kandel.

Samuel S.

Drury.

T H E M O U N T I N G W A S T E OF THE A M E R I C A N SECONDARY

SCHOOL. B y John L . Tildsley. 1936. $1.50. T H E T E A C H I N G OF CONTROVERSIAL S U B J E C T S .

ward L. Thorndike.

SCHOLARS, W O R K E R S , AND G E N T L E M E N .

S. MacLean. WORK,

By

Malcolm

By

Charles

Allen

1939. $1.00.

WAGES,

Williams.

Ed-

1938. $1.00.

SECONDARY EDUCATION AND L I F E .

Prosser.

By

1937. $1.00.

AND

EDUCATION.

By

Aubrey

W.

1940. $1.00.

EDUCATION IN A W O R L D OF F E A R .

By Mark A.

May.

1941. $1.00. EDUCATION

FOR

TODAY

AND T O M O R R O W .

By

Floyd

W. Reeves. 1942. $1.00. SECONDARY EDUCATION AS P U B L I C P O L I C Y .

B y Paul R.

Mort. 1943. $1.00. TERTIARY EDUCATION. B y George D. Stoddard. 1944. $1.00. T H E R O L E OF THE FEDERAL G O V E R N M E N T IN

EDUCA-

TION. B y George F. Zook. 1945. $1.00. LABOR L O O K S AT E D U C A T I O N .

$1.00.

By

M a r k Starr.

1946.

EQUALIZING EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES BEYOND THE SECONDARY SCHOOL

LONDON : GEOFFREY CUMBERLEGE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Œïje Sngltó letture, 1947 Equalizing Educational Opportunities Beyond the Secondary School BY

ORDWAY TEAD Chairman of the Board of Higher Education, New York City, and Editor, Social and Economic Books, Harper and Brothers

CAMBRIDGE HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS

1947

COPYRIGHT, 1 9 4 7 B Y THE PRESIDENT ANO FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE

PRINTED I N THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

T H E I N G L I S

T o

L E C T U R E S H I P

HONOR THE MEMORY OF ALEXANDER

INGLIS, 1 8 7 9 - 1 9 2 4 , HIS FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES GAVE TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, A F U N D FOR THE MAINTENANCE OF A LECTURESHIP I N SECONDARY EDUCATION.

TO

THE STUDY OF PROBLEMS I N THIS FIELD PROFESSOR INGLIS DEVOTED HIS PROFESSIONAL CAREER, LEAVING AS A PRECIOUS HERITAGE TO HIS

CO-WORKERS

AMPLE OF HIS INDUSTRY, INTEGRITY, H U M A N CIAL VISION.

THE

EX-

INTELLECTUAL

SYMPATHY, AND SO-

I T IS THE PURPOSE OF THE

LECTURESHIP TO PERPETUATE THE SPIRIT OF HIS LABORS AND CONTRIBUTE TO THE SOLUTION OF PROBLEMS I N THE FIELD OF HIS INTEREST.

T H E LECTURES ON THIS

FOUNDATION ARE PUBLISHED BY THE SCHOOL.

ANNUALLY

EQUALIZING EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES BEYOND THE SECONDARY SCHOOL H E educational provisions of the G - I Bill of Rights marked the beginning of a new epoch for the American college. They signify a turning point in our approach to the need for, the purposes, the scope, and the operating conduct of higher education. The linkage of this new orientation in the colleges' social function with the conduct of the secondary school is inevitably close and far-reaching, even if the consequences are not yet fully grasped by all of us. The range of basic changes in these two types of institution which are required as we enter this epoch are similar, interrelated, and in need of immediate and widespread re-thinking. Actually, our colleges are being asked to perform what is in effect an internal revolution on short notice. For the private college the changes which are implicit are in important respects different from those faced by state and municipal universities.

But underlying the whole set of

forces now at work, there would seem to be the same group of influences which in the last half century brought the secondary school to a point at which nearly 80 per cent of our young people

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EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

are attending high school.

This contrasts with

about 7 per cent of our young people in high school in 1900, 20 per cent in 1 9 1 8 , and 70 per cent in 1 9 3 8 . W h y is this possible equalizing of educational opportunity beyond the secondary level now in such sharp focus? It is important to understand all the forces which

give this question

fresh

urgency and thus to gain a clearer sense of direction and a more explicit statement of needed changes of program. I am not assuming in the following analysis that the American college has to date fulfilled its purpose or done its job adequately.

Neither am I

willing to concede, on the other hand, that if college education is properly conducted there is any serious danger of educating large numbers of our young people beyond their intellectual competence. I do not believe that they will become discontented and frustrated because opportunities commensurate with their education are not available to them in the world. Rather, the key point is that if, as a result of inevitable social forces, the college experience is to be more widely available to more students, the conception of college purpose and of method is at a turning point. And the sooner we are conscious of the inevitable im-

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

3

plications of this transition, the more effective our efforts on its behalf can be. T H E ELEMENTS OF THE PROBLEM

Let me, then, as a foundation for suggesting a program which will promote a more fully equalized opportunity, indicate briefly how we have arrived where we are. The most important factors to discuss are these: the increase in highschool enrollments, inadequate high-school facilities, differential population growths in different parts of our country, limitations due to low family income, higher costs of attending college, the handicaps resulting from arbitrary admission requirements (including discriminatory practices against racial and religious minorities), antiquated college curriculum offerings, higher age requirements in many employments, an increasing demand for more generalized skills in work, inadequate college plant facilities. I have already mentioned that a continuously increasing percentage of our young people is graduating from high school. This experience itself invites many whose curiosity and ambition are newly stirred, and who have glimpsed wider horizons, to desire and seek a college education. Despite the difficulties which they may encounter,

4

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

tens of thousands of lower-income families which a generation ago would not have entertained the thought of a college education for their children are now seeking this as a matter of course, as are the young people themselves. They are taking it for granted that this is a right, or at least a hope of which they should not be deprived. The experience of several million veterans with higher education has definitely contributed to this idea that a college education is both a good and a necessary experience, and that it should not be denied to their younger brothers and sisters because they may come from low-income families. This widened expectancy on the part of thousands of our citizens has brought in its wake a fresh awareness of serious inadequacies at the secondary school level. We realize the disturbing discrepancies in preparation for college among high schools in different localities and regions. We are aware in our larger cities of what may well be a disservice to our nation in the sharp division of secondary school work into academic, commercial, trade, and general high schools. For such a classification of students at this level on a prospective occupational basis usually means that all except the graduates of academic high schools are denied the opportunity to continue their education

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

S

in college if they decide that a college experience might be valuable for them. We are increasingly aware of the vicious circle which stultifies the vitality of high-school education and leads to discouragement and withdrawal from high school prior to graduation. In this vicious circle the secondary school accuses the college of confining it to narrow restrictions of college preparation subject matter. The colleges in turn criticize the secondary schools for the inadequacy of the preparation of their freshmen. And there are few who ask what educational content profits most the youngsters and the community. Despite all this, with a present high-school population in our land of around 7,000,000 pupils, there is every reason to suppose that the high schools will call upon the colleges in the near future to enroll at least 3,000,000 students, as compared with the present figure of slightly more than 2,000,000 students in attendance. That this 3,000,000 figure represents the virtually certain minimum demand of the immediate future upon our colleges seems the valid conclusion, and the trend has been carefully plotted by some authorities which raises this to a 3,500,000 figure before i960.

6

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES ASPECTS OF POPULATION

GROWTH

An over-all contributing factor to this increasing pressure upon our colleges is, of course, our normal trend of population growth. And within the frame of this trend certain refinements of analysis will help us to understand how it contributes to inequalities of college opportunity. Two distinct influences are to be noted. The first is the fact that our large cities bring together enormous numbers of families which economically fall into the lower-income brackets, with an annual income under $4,000. Yet for their children there has been relatively good high-school education and along with it the demand for the college opportunity. This heavy volume of demand cannot be satisfied at the price of normal tuitions, even the low amounts charged by public colleges. And the larger the local high-school graduating classes, the more surely is there a thwarting of the chance of many families to extend their children's schooling. On the other hand, the second fact is that the rural and small-town regions are those in which the yearly increases in our population occur. For we know that our urban centers do not reproduce themselves by their own birth rates, which replace

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

7

only about three-fourths of their inhabitants. For the rest, the population figures of cities are maintained or increased by immigration from rural areas. Y e t it is in these rural areas that the inadequacies of elementary and secondary schooling are most marked. It is, moreover, in the country districts where families are large and where local taxing resources are limited, that around half of our nation's youngsters grow up. And, from the outset, the cards are stacked against them in respect to both sufficiency of facilities and quality of instruction. T h e y tend notably, therefore, to leave school earlier, to have little high-school exposure and that of a quality which handicaps them in seeking admission to college. In the face of such hurdles the discouragements to an extended educational experience are too high for most to surmount. In other words, as a discerning authority has put it, the fact of differential fertility is itself a force making for inequality of educational opportunity. For if, as Professor Newton Edwards of the University of Chicago has shown, one-half of the children of our country are born into homes where the income is less than $2,000 and where the grade-school and high-school opportunity is less than adequate, then what has in fact been

8

EQUALIZING

OPPORTUNITIES

happening is that we have been making it easy for those parts of the population which are not replacing themselves to get a college education at the expense, so to speak, of the more populationproducing groups in the nation whose education necessarily stops at a lower level. Y e t all that we know about the distribution of intellectual competence leads us to conclude that there is relatively just as much high intellectual capacity distributed in lower-income groups and in rural regions as in high-income groups and in cities. Any bland assumption, therefore, that the present unregulated process by which college students are selected means an automatic choice of the best potential material is thus seen to be a supposition contrary to fact. ECONOMIC

INEQUALITIES

The reality and the terrific importance of the facts of family-income distribution need, indeed, to be separately underscored. Reliable figures released by the Federal Reserve Board in 1946 disclose that about one-half of the more than thirtyfive million families of our country had in 1945 a total income, before taxes, of $2,000 or less; and that two-thirds of the families had an income of less than $3,000 a year. Only one family in ten

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

9

had an income within the range from $4,000 to $7,Soo. Dr. Walter V. Bingham, Chief Psychologist in the Adjutant General's office of the War Department, whose experience with army testing included over ten million men, has the following to say (in an unpublished address before the New York Academy of Medicine) : The sobering fact is that among more than three million men in these top levels with the intellectual ability required of leaders, the Army examiners found upwards of a million who had not even completed a high school course, much less gone on to a college, a technological institute or a professional school . . . For the majority of these bright soldiers, the decisive reason for dropping out of school had been economic, you may be sure; a restricted family income.

And of related interest is the fact, of which Mr. Mark Starr reminded us in last year's Inglis Lecture, that the National Resources Planning Board had in 1943 estimated that nearly two million young people of high-school age were not in high school because of limited means. These arresting considerations have to be seen against the facts of tuition amounts and increases in tuition levels at colleges, public and private, to say nothing of the other supplementary costs entailed.

Even for the student who may live at

IO

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

home, there is not only the increasing cost of education at every point but, if the family income is restricted, there may be crucial need for supplementary income from the young member.

My

own experience in urban universities convinces me that even free college tuitions cannot be a complete means of equalizing educational opportunity, where family income levels are low. On the score o f the relation of family income to actual college entrance, the evidence of a number of representative studies is conclusive.

Dr.

Vannevar Bush has included in his Report to the President, Science, the Endless Frontier,

a con-

venient summarizing Appendix of the available data from the United States Office of Education and from private studies in Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Kentucky, and elsewhere. 1 And it indicates that for the country as a whole about one-half of today's high-school graduates who are otherwise qualified for college entrance do not entertain the idea of going to college because of inadequate financial resources. What this means in terms of national failure to identify the latent intellectual talent and potentialities of our citizens is appalling to contemplate. And let me stress again the 1 U . S. Office of Scientific Research and Development (Washington: U. S. Govt. Printing Office, 1945).

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

ii

well-established fact that in terms of high-school grades and general abilities a full half of those thus debarred from college for economic reasons are the intellectual equals of the upper quartile of those who successfully seek to continue their education. RESTRICTIONS U P O N

ADMISSION

An indirect, but nevertheless potent, influence contributing to inequality of opportunity centers about the methods of admitting to college and the nature of the college curriculum in its first two years. I have already said that many smaller high schools find it difficult to prepare students for the specific course requirements of many colleges. There is still far too much reluctance in college admission offices to measure capacity for a profitable college experience in terms of over-all abilities rather than in terms of course credits. In addition, there is the whole question of limiting factors which a college may impose in terms of a preference for children of alumni, for students from certain geographical areas, and finally for applicants who do not come from one of the racial or religious minority groups. Whatever may be the nominal claims of colleges, and especially private colleges, it is hard to gainsay the

12

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

reality of the presence of discrimination and of quota systems where the admission of students from such groups is involved. And, unquestionably, there is tied up with the reality of high mortality from college in the first two years the fact that for a combination of reasons the first two years of instruction have repelled rather than attracted many students.

To

these there seems to be little object in completing the course. Another factor which demands increasing recognition is the marked trend toward a deferment in the hiring age of new workers by both producing and service industries.

More and more a mini-

mum working age of 1 8 years is required by employing establishments, and the number of states in which this is the legal age for entry on work will continue to increase. This means that even those with high-school diplomas are less easily assimilated into our economic life than was true a couple of decades ago. And if the voting age in other states is dropped to 1 8 years, as it has been in Georgia, we have here an added argument for a longer educational exposure for qualified youth. Broad economic forces also play their part in determining the volume of applications for college entrance. On the one hand, a period of general

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

13

prosperity tends to invite a larger number of applications because more families have the required means. And on the other hand a period of business depression, such as we witnessed in the early thirties, by constricting opportunities for employment encourages those who can possibly afford it to extend the period of education of their children and thus avoid having them unemployed. Indeed, it was from these tens of thousands of families which could not afford to send their children to college in the last depression that the Civilian Conservation Corps and the National Youth Administration recruited their rolls. TECHNOLOGICAL

FACTORS

Another crucial factor in this picture is caused by our failure to understand the present nature of our technological society.

W e have never yet

faced up fully to the sociological and educational implications of the fact that our economy needs in large numbers worthy citizens of general competence, alertness, resourcefulness and good character traits, rather than relatively more of those possessed of the refinements of vocational training. For we are in a period where vocations are themselves in flux, which puts a further premium on general capacities. And even though the need

14

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

for those possessed of specialized craft and engineering skills is large, it is not increasing proportionately to the increase in the demand for workers of unspecialized abilities. Reliable figures indicate that close to 70 per cent of the employment opportunities today are in callings which either did not exist a generation ago or which can be readily learned on the job. Moreover, utilization no less than an advancement of our technical knowledge requires, as Dr. Bush's already mentioned study on behalf of the National Research Foundation shows, a definite need to encourage able young people into advanced scientific callings, including research. He points out truly that "for industries based on highly advanced techniques which must be adapted constantly to new scientific discoveries training is essential throughout management and while it cannot be said that in many cases the good scientist is therefore a good manager for such a business, still without scientific training, he could hardly function at all." T H E INADEQUACIES o r

COLLEGE PLANT

FACILITIES

The problem of the adequacy of college plant facilities needs next to concern us. The increase

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

15

in college enrollments due to veteran admissions is now taxing the physical resources of virtually every college in the country. State universities are denying admission to applicants from outside the state; veteran men students are being given precedence both over women applicants and over recent high-school graduates. In consequence, women's colleges have many more applicants than they can possibly take. The question is whether, with the tapering off of veteran enrollments, we shall ever go back to a situation where there are enough dormitory and classroom facilities for those who will seek entrance, to say nothing of those who might seek entrance if economic handicaps did not stand in the way. My own prophecy is that the tapering off of veteran enrollment will not produce any appreciable easing upon the resources of our colleges. The so-called "veteran bulge" will be quickly filled by a larger demand from an increasing number of high-school boys and girls. In short, a seriously limiting factor upon equality of opportunity at the college level is, and will continue to be, the sheer inadequacy of plant facilities which will be available at the level of anticipated demand. In this connection there is the further

16

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

limiting factor that many institutions will wisely decide that they do not wish to increase their size beyond a defined point. The pressing question will then have to be answered as to whether there are actually enough colleges in the country to take care of the legitimate demand. There are undoubtedly important regional differences on this score. We can say with confidence that the situation of plant inadequacy is most serious in the southern tier of states. Both white and Negro students are the losers by this acknowledged inadequacy of facilities. But the handicaps experienced by the Negro young people are particularly severe. Despite legal provisions to the contrary, the amount of money spent upon the Negro schools and colleges in the South seems to be about 60 per cent of the funds spent for comparable education for white students in the same states. If the objection is here interposed that in the future our colleges should be more selective in terms of the intellectual qualities possessed by applicants, I would stress that the upthrust of the inevitable future demand promises, whether we like it or not, to be not more selective but more inclusive in respect to differing kinds of intellectual attainment possessed by candidates press-

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

17

ing for admission. Or, to put the matter another way, while it may be true that certain colleges will place a continuing or even greater selective emphasis upon high intellectual capacity, the demand for a general education beyond high school will undoubtedly increase from students of moderate intellectual endowments (down to 105 IQ) and with artistic rather than verbalistic and bookreading aptitudes. As is emphasized later in this discussion, any assumption that only one kind of college with one kind of education should be available as the only desirable provision to be made is increasingly acknowledged to be unsound. Another factor in this connection needs to be more vividly seen. The amount of public monies and of private resources available for donations for educational uses varies greatly from state to state and from region to region. Insofar as support of higher education continues to be only a state, local, or private responsibility, to that extent the areas in which population is sparse or poor have suffered commensurately in the amount of higher education supplied. In such educationally backward areas there is certainly no equality of opportunity to go to college. This discrepancy of financial resources works, I repeat, to the special disadvantage of the Negro

18

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

because he happens to live chiefly in the states which are financially handicapped and which practice discrimination in their educational budgets. And even in other states the discrimination against the Negro student is such that he faces a serious inequality of opportunity wherever he is in residence—an inequality which is composite of economic limitations, color discrimination, and all too often inability to have the chance to complete high school at all. ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY

Such then is the factual situation. It records a combination of forces which disturb the natural movement of those actually qualified into college and thence into graduate and professional schools. It constitutes a sobering picture of a state of affairs which has grown upon us without our having become fully conscious of its seriousness for a democratic society. For the handicaps we thus face in meeting the need for the integrity of a democratic, society—a society committed to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all its citizens—simply cannot longer be allowed such powerful play. We are deliberately leveling up the educational exposure of all our people, a trend

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

19

which is nationally essential and democratically inevitable. The equality which this implies and requires is not one of identity or uniformity of education for all, but rather an equal opportunity for varied and diverse educational experiences adapted to the kinds and degrees of social intelligence which our individual citizens possess. Indeed, before offering my own prescriptions as to the ways and means of countering these inequalities I should pause and be explicit as to the assumptions underlying the needed efforts toward the greater educational equalization which is imperative. The first and most momentous of these assumptions is that the citizens of a democracy face today a task of unprecedented magnitude and range. No longer can citizenship be a passive affair. No longer can we leave to chance our American awareness of and sympathy with populations outside our continent, which are brown or yellow or black and which are committed to different religious faiths and often to different political and economic ideologies. No longer can the conviction of the justifiable soundness of our democratic way of life be considered only incidentally in the conduct of our educational system. And no longer can we refrain

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EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

from recognizing that the task of being a citizen extends over into the areas of occupational group relations and of the control of economic activities in the public interest in ways that urgently require trained and adult responsibility. Our society operates by the organized interrelation of functional economic groups. And unless these groups by virtue of the education of their members stand ready to conduct their affairs and negotiate their interrelations with other groups in a responsible way and with the primacy of the public interest held to the fore, such a society stands in grave peril of falling apart. I venture in this connection to reiterate a paragraph from my Commencement speech at Stanford University last June: 2 T o assure an education that will help to develop desires, interests, and values which forward larger ends of community amity, while at the same time reenforcing each person's and each group's need for security and creativity—this is the basic psychological and moral problem of our times. We have to be equipped by conscious intent to move into an era where groups will not merely contract together but will do so in a mediative mood and with methods of joint deliberation which assure the advancement of community interest. Positive eagerness for collaborative cooperation under contract to serve community ends is the 2 Ordway Tead, "Education in the Public Interest," Journal of Higher Education (December, 1946), p. 461.

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

21

next fulfillment of historic tendency. Hence education must build that sentiment into the motives of every individual. The role of higher education, both for leaders and for followers, for managers and for labor leaders, for consumer spokesmen and for government administrative heads, is indispensable in our functional economy, which must sustain harmoniously the operation of its complex agencies and complicated relationships. In short, the burden which modern living puts on the American adult is of such an order that it is virtually impossible for him to learn too much, to have too much education which he has truly absorbed, or to profit by a conscious educational process in his adult years when mature interests reveal with some urgency what educational content he would at that stage profit by. Clearly our educational responsibility, and therefore our educational credo, must be that each citizen shall have the opportunity for as much education as his abilities and capacities can assimilate; and that education shall be effectively addressed in its method and appeal to differing abilities and aptitudes. We have too often assumed that there was ideally only one type of college education which

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EQUALIZING

OPPORTUNITIES

was best designed to meet our needs. But we know today that this is not so. We now know approximately the range and distribution of intelligence quotients and other measures of ability to learn throughout our population. We realize, as Dean T. R. McConnell of the University of Minnesota has said, that "other demands of human nature such as artistic ability, mechanical aptitude and ingenuity, skill and dexterity, social sensitivity and versatility are equally significant in the total structure of democratic society." 3 And we are forced to the conclusion that colleges must increasingly minister to the total educational needs of those young people who are not necessarily highly skilled in the verbal manipulation of high abstractions. Actually, we already have colleges with a variety of educational aims and methods—a variety which should be stimulated and not discouraged. But we have never yet fully given effect to the principle that each individual at any point where he leaves formal schooling shall have been helped to come into possession of those experiences, outlooks, and capacities which, up to the level of his powers, will enable him to face adult life with reasonable competence and confidence. 3

Teachers College Record (January, 1947), p. 210.

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

23

We must be sure, in other words, that the general education offered in high school, in junior college, and the four-year college, has embraced that content which makes for maturity as the individual encounters his career as a family member, as a person with a soul, as a worker, and as a citizen in a world community. From now on it has to be our concern as a matter of national educational policy that no person is deprived by fortuitous economic handicaps of that measure of education which will yield for him the finest fruits of personal growth and of total social competence. Ability and zeal rather than family income must be the determining factor in the education which we offer our fellow citizens. President Conant, in his discussion of "The Future of Higher Education" (Harper's Magazine, May, 1938), has given voice to similar conclusions as follows: We must not only perfect our methods of selecting those most suitable for certain types of higher education but arrange for a different type of training for those not so "culled." Selection is not a "weeding-out process"—it is one aspect of educational guidance which has as its aim the direction of every youth into a fruitful field of labor. Only a relatively few should proceed through the long and somewhat tedious process

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

of "book learning" that leads to the professions. The others should receive a training which not only equips them for work in certain vocations but prepares them for life as well-rounded, intelligent, and useful citizens in a democratic society. . . . Only the most unrealistic optimist would believe that the accidental interplay of social and economic forces has resulted in the selection of the right 11 per cent of our youth for college work. And no one who thinks in terms of adapting the education to the student would imagine that the same type of training would be desirable for the entire 100 per cent of boys and girls of college age even if it were felt advisable for everyone to go to college. Nothing less than these affirmations, it seems to me, can stand as the measure of the educational task which our American democracy will today essay for itself. T o be sure, much of this points in a direction opposite to that of the objective, the method, and the emphasis which have characterized many American colleges. What is actually involved is a re-valuation and a re-statement of the very nature of culture and of democratic personality. What is implicit is a re-thinking of the need for knowledge, of the kinds of knowledge needed, and of the relation of knowledge to wisdom in living, in a manner which re-defines for tomorrow the nature and meaning of scholarship itself.

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

25

Fundamentally, in a w a y which college faculties have thus far hardly glimpsed, here is comprehended a conception of liberal or general education which vitalizes the meaning of the actual experiences of ordinary living; and w h i c h puts the fruits of scholarship into terms which m a k e clear with some immediacy the relevance and human importance of that which is being studied. In m y Scholarship D a y address at M a s s a c h u setts State College, N o v e m b e r 29, 1945, I further clarified m y own view as to this newer sense of scholarship

which has

today

to become

more

widely accepted: Scholarship has to do with insight into significant relationships of ideas or facts. It has to do with a combination of the intensive and extensive look at data which has human importance. It is concerned to be at the same time deep and broad in its attack on vital subject matter. Its drive is towards establishing what is valuable, what is meaningful and significant in discrete areas of human experience. In true scholarship the overview is as important as are the minutiae. There is a dialectic that goes deliberately and consciously back and forth from generalization to fact and from particular idea to principle. And we call those fixated on the facts, pedants, not scholars. In any sense adequate for today's distress, your scholar is thus a philosopher. He is concerned to establish, to clarify, to secure appreciation for, some special body of knowledge because it helps to a better

26

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

grasp of the whole of man's world. The problem of unity in diversity, of the one and the many, is every scholar's problem. In a world and in an age so surfeited with facts as ours is, to relate the particular to the general becomes essential. If the scholar seems to have forgotten how to view matters under the aegis of eternity, that boon, too, has to be restored to him. Also, the scholar is to be distinguished from the researcher. Scholarship may grow out of research, may be built on research; but it is of another essence. It has to do with placing the value of the research and the meaning and significance of the findings. Scholarship includes the capacity tò be wisely evaluative as one of its most vital attributes.4 M r . Justice Jackson has given voice to a warning in this connection that w e surely have to heed for he has said: It is one of the paradoxes of our times that modern society needs to fear little except men and what is worse it needs to fear only the educated men. The most serious crimes are committed only by educated men and technically competent people . . . If education is to be the instrument of our improvement, it should be constantly aware of its mission. I f , as I believe is true, college education has not yielded the fruits we have a right to expect from it in terms of equipping democratic citizens, the reason is one which it is in the power of the 4See American pp.220-231.

Association

of Colleges

Bulletin

(May, 1946),

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

27

colleges to help correct. And that correction has to be in terms of the obvious relation to be discovered by teacher and student alike, between the meaning of all that which is being studied and the troubled affairs of men in the larger world. P R O G R A M PROPOSALS He would be bold indeed who would say that we know in every particular what our sins of commission and omission have been, and that we possess answers to the urgent questions I have tried to pose. Hence it will be prudent if in offering suggestions toward a program for equalizing educational opportunity I make clear those areas which are confused, as to which experiments have been limited, and those areas where the answers are not yet in hand. I propose, therefore, to consider from the point of view of improved equalization of opportunities the following problems: admissions, curriculum, student economic handicaps, college organization, teacher adequacy, and over-all public educational administration. AT

THE

SECONDARY

SCHOOL

LEVEL

The college experience can never be much better than the preparation which the young person

28

EQUALIZING

OPPORTUNITIES

brings to it. And no thinking about equalization is complete which does not take our minds back to the adequacy of the elementary and high-school training. We have already noted the vast discrepancies which exist in the schooling with which our young people apply for college entrance. All recent studies of secondary school education and of young people of secondary school age are agreed that the problem of economic handicaps must first be faced at the earlier level. Among these authorities, advocacy of scholarships on the basis of need for at least the final two years of secondary school is general. Certainly the problem of college admissions from this point of view is artificially limited if some tens of thousands of intellectually qualified young people are never able to stay long enough in school to get a highschool diplofna. This matter of high-school scholarships seems to me therefore to be the first recommendation to enunciate in our program. ADMISSIONS

POLICIES

Next, it is important that each college formulate with public clarity what its admissions policy is. The reasons for evasiveness and ambiguity here are not far to seek, and allegations of racial and religious discrimination are related to this am-

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

29

biguity. It is presumably defensible that a college may specify a willingness to accept a certain number of the children of alumni, that it may specify certain regional quotas, and that it may set certain standards of personal qualifications. These last, of course, are more subjective. The college also sets its intellectual standards for admission. But the justifiable objection of minority groups in our society that they are being discriminated against in college entrance calls attention to an intolerable situation and one which a democratic society has to confront with greater candor than heretofore. Equality of opportunity at the point of admission restrictions for members of minority groups is not a simple problem, to be resolved in a hurry. There are, of course, regional concentrations of population of our minority racial groups which complicate the problem, to say nothing of the fact that at least thirteen states have explicit legislation calling for race segregation in all schooling which is publicly supported. Nevertheless, I offer the conjecture that if it were possible to get all colleges simultaneously and sincerely to agree to leave racial and religious factors out of consideration in their admissions policy, there would come after a period of five to ten years a natural dif-

30

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

fusion of students from these groups into the great majority of colleges in a way that would effectively remove the problem from its present acute stage. Such an explicit, voluntary, and universal abandonment of every practice which smacks of a quota system should lead both students, parents, and colleges in a relatively short time to a more healthy, a more tolerant, and a happier relationship of members of minority groups to other groups in our colleges and in the national community. The legal segregations of the South are, of course, more deeply rooted; and it is therefore not realistic to include them in this suggested proposal of a possible way out of the discrimination dilemma. Yet surely the time must come, and the sooner the better, when the South will decide to modify its legislation enforcing segregation. At the least, as far as the rest of the country is concerned, colleges and especially private institutions owe it to our society to be more explicit, more forthright, and more generous than they now are as to the factors controlling their admissions policy. I have alluded to the problem of the secondary school course requirements which colleges prescribe as a condition of entrance. Here again we move slowly, but with the inequalities in high-

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

31

school preparation throughout the country and with the unequal speed of maturation among highschool students, the time is certainly not far distant when admission will be by total intellectual capacity demonstrated by general tests rather than by the arithmetic of course credits in specified and often antiquated subjects. The college records of the students included in the so-called Eight-Year Study, who came from different types of secondary schools, and the war records of the armed forces in selecting students for advanced officer training work at college provide telling evidence in their different ways of the importance of broadening our basis for selection of those who possess the capacity for profiting by college experience. Associated with the admissions policy, and having much to do with effective continuance in the college experience, are the methods of orientation employed in the early weeks of college. Unless there is the most adept educational guidance at this initial stage, it is all too easy for the college freshman to begin his career in a way that from the outset reduces the likelihood of his making good through a four-year course, or even remaining to complete it. A part of the success of this important educa-

32

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

tional guidance program has to do, of course, with the nature of the college curriculum into which the student is being guided. And I have no hesitancy in saying that the nature of the college curriculum has far more to do than we often suppose with the vitality of the college experience for the student, as well as with the likelihood of his completing it. It cannot be urged too emphatically that the mortality among college students is as much, if not more, the fault of the college and of its first two years of subjects studied, than it is the fault of the student. The most damaging indictment of today's college is that approximately one-half of the students never stay to graduate. And the consensus of competent opinion is that failure to make the educational experience vital to the student outranks all other causes in the list of reasons for which students drop away during the four years. Also, a distinction so far as wise educational method is concerned has to be more carefully observed as between those students who have a relatively lower IQ and those with high IQ's who do not become aroused or implicated in the significance of their own education.

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES A VITALIZED

CURRICULUM

One reason for the recent widespread attention to the revamping of the curriculum in the first two college years is the recognition of this difficulty. And it is undoubtedly true that in the smaller institutions where the course of studies in the first two years has been shaped along the lines approximating those of the Columbia College plan, the student mortality has been lower than the average. The indictment that the studies and the teachers in the first two college years are not provocative and stimulating is happily having its effect. The faster we can move in the now generally accepted direction of livelier offerings of courses and the best teachers at the outset of college, the better it will be for giving all the college population an equal opportunity to achieve graduation. Moreover if, as is presently suggested, a more systematic and comprehensive effort is made to have more high-school graduates attend accredited junior colleges, it is clear that the curricular offerings of these colleges too will have to be more dynamic in terms of general studies treated less abstrusely than is now typical. And this again should mean a salvaging of more students for longer college exposure.

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES FEDERAL SCHOLARSHIPS PROPOSED

In the light of the critical importance of economic handicaps among high-school graduates, a prominent place has certainly to be found in a constructive program for a more generous student scholarship policy. Every possible affirmative effort should be made to utilize scholarships from private resources to the fullest extent. The conspicuous example of Harvard College in establishing the Harvard National Scholarships which President Conant has vigorously promoted is an excellent instance of what can undoubtedly be adopted in many other private colleges. And the number of industrial corporations embarking on programs of free scholarships is another gratifying evidence. We may thus look to some increase of available scholarship monies from private sources. But the fact is that at present in both public and private colleges a total of under $13,000,000 is available annually for undergraduate scholarship purposes. In relation to the dimensions of the problem this can hardly be said to go far toward a solution. This is especially true when tuition and special fee increases as high as 20 to 25 per cent have taken place in some institutions, both public and private.

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

35

How far present scholarship provisions are short of meeting the problem will be readily seen if we project a tentative picture in arithmetical terms. Assume the provision of 100,000 scholarships annually throughout the nation: and assume that for tuition purposes each student is given up to $500 plus a maintenance subvention of $ 5 0 a month, or a total of $ 1 , 1 0 0 a year. of

this relatively modest provision

The cost would be

$110,000,000 the first year, which would grow to $440,000,000 as the members of four college classes were being assisted. In other words, if we honestly consider the need for handling our inequalities by this device, it is readily seen that private

resources

cannot

meet

the

financial

situation. I am myself prepared to advocate the initiation of a scholarship program from Federal funds which would begin at the secondary school level and continue through the four college years, including in its provisions also the students of junior colleges, and providing finally for graduate and professional school fellowships. Initially, for practical reasons, scholarships would presumably be given on the basis of established need, together with the assurance that the student is intellectually qualified. The administration of such

36

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

scholarships will obviously call for the most thoughtful and careful provision to assure that genuine merit, mental potentiality, and need are the criteria used in determining awards. In connection with the proposed National Research Foundation's recommendations above referred to will be found a statement of proposals (see Appendix C, page 172) looking to a national executive director supported by committees of representative state and local educational authorities, and making use for selective purposes of a combination of tested informational material as objectively devised as possible. Some adaptation of this well-conceived provision could undoubtedly be made for the broader purpose here recommended. It is less important on this point to elaborate the procedure than to establish the principles of operation which will assure its integrity. And I see no grave obstacle to the working out of an educationally sound and wise method of selection which will keep scholarship awards on a high plane of national usefulness removed from political interference. In order to meet the difficulty of the varying amounts of tuition, especially as between public and private colleges, I suggest that the scholarship for tuition might be set at a varying amount

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

37

up to $500, and that the total scholarship carry with it also a subsistence grant of at least $ 5 0 a month. A n y scholarship plan which ignores the acute need for meeting non-tuition costs will not measure up to the urgency of the situation. M a n y would advocate that in any such scholarship program as this, there should be provision for work by the holder on the analogy of the N . Y . A . program. For myself, I am prepared to urge that this introduces administrative complications and invidious personal distinctions which render it a doubtful expedient. A broadly similar provision for graduate fellowships, such as has been advocated by President Conant a number of times, as well as by the Bush report, is of course an essential feature of an inclusive plan; and undoubtedly the cash provisions of this should be somewhat more generous than the provisions for undergraduate scholarships. T o those who think that any such proposal for Federal scholarships is an unduly radical departure, it should be pointed out that the G - I Bill of Rights itself has established a strong precedent; and the measure already adopted by the United States N a v y for post-war training through college education of qualified material for future officers embodies these identical provisions with a

38

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

$1,200 grant per student. Also, legislation which includes features of this nature at the high-school level is being widely and actively advocated. In short, a Federally supported and locally administered plan of scholarships and a national plan for fellowships is one of the most vital planks in a platform to equalize educational opportunity beyond the secondary school. PROPOSALS

FOR ADDITIONAL JUNIOR

COLLEGES

The problem of the operating capacity of American colleges in the aggregate has also to be realistically faced. That the plant now available is adequate to more equalized provisions is, clearly, an untenable position. Many educators are now agreed that a more inclusive program of state systems of free public junior colleges is probably the first step in the necessary enlargement of college plant facilities. There is room for honest difference of opinion and for experiments with different types of junior colleges in the light of the experimental character of such efforts in the past. For myself, I see much to be said for a policy which would keep such colleges dissociated in educational leadership from local high schools and school superintendents. And it certainly should be a fundamental policy that, however constituted

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

39

and controlled, the curriculum of such state systems of junior colleges should be so framed that there would be no question about the ready transfer of graduates with acceptable academic rank into the junior year of the senior colleges of the country. How large a population should be drawn upon for an individual junior college and the relative extent of local, state, and Federal support are matters about which it is too early to be dogmatic. But an adequate system of junior colleges to level up the educational opportunity for a larger fraction of high-school graduates will in fact require in many states generous Federal subvention both for capital construction and probably

for the

maintenance of certain minimum salary standards for teachers, as well as for the scholarship provisions already suggested. And if the experience of California is any criterion, the number of young people who will be interested and eager to avail themselves of such junior colleges might well be as high as 60 to 75 per cent of the high-school graduates. N o departure in principle is involved in such a proposal if we are thinking of free, public junior colleges.

But we do know that the educational

standards of such institutions and the quality of instruction have to be maintained on a high level,

40

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

and also that the objectives of general education will have to be kept clearly to the fore and never lost sight of under pressures from the claims for vocational training. Again, the locating of such colleges in order to minimize the transportation of students presents its own difficulties. And I am bound to add for myself that if we did not have to think so largely in terms of budgets, there is much to be said for the educational value in the junior college development of provision for dormitory living for at least one year out of the twoyear term. But even with the projecting of such program of greatly increased junior college facilities, I doubt whether that alone can take the strain off the existing limited college facilities in the way which is essential. Indeed, the increase in the number of two-year colleges promises of itself to lead to larger demands for transfer to the junior year of four-year colleges. The problem of the adequacy of the four-year college plant facilities is of an order of magnitude which has not been honestly recognized or faced. PROPOSALS FOR EXPANDED COLLEGE FACILITIES

In other words, we confront in the immediate future the acute need for additional building facil-

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

41

ities in colleges both publicly and privately supported. This raises a number of thorny questions. Shall we, for example, add to the plants of the already huge state universities or should we recognize that there presumably is some optimum size for an undergraduate college beyond which these units should not be allowed to grow? Should we, in other words, begin a devolution of state university facilities in the way, for instance, that Ohio has done with its five state university branches dispersed in different sections of the state near to large population centers? Again, if we hold to the view that the continuing strength and prosperity of private colleges is to be encouraged, is it probable that sufficient private resources will be forthcoming to enable private institutions to maintain or modernize their plants or to enlarge them? And if the answer is that private institutions are losing out in the effort to obtain adequate funds for necessary new buildings, should such institutions be able under certain prescribed conditions to draw upon Federal funds? This, of course, raises a fundamental issue about which public policy is at present somewhat in flux, namely, as to whether public monies should be made available to private institutions

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

for capital purposes. In certain proposed Federal legislation one measure would debar private institutions from such grants and another would include them. Whatever the outcome of this public controversy may be, I hazard the guess that the private colleges will continue to lose ground progressively if they have to remain dependent solely upon the receipt of private gifts for developmental purposes. This is a possibility which should be viewed as a calamity. Surely our thinkfuture of higher education should ïcognition to the unquestioned benefits which the privately endowed colleges have historically contributed to the qualitative aspects of college work. And, however we contrive our national program for equalizing educational opportunity beyond the secondary school, we must be at pains to conserve and to foster the values which private colleges at their best can exemplify. PROPOSALS

REGARDING H I G H E R FOR

SALARIES

TEACHERS

An indirect but nevertheless vital aspect of an effort to equalize opportunity has to do with the adequacy and quality of the instruction offered in both junior and senior colleges. Without teachers thoroughly qualified in every way to make the

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

43

educational experience attractive and effective, the mortality from our colleges will inevitably continue to be high. This matter of the caliber of the teaching profession is a complex problem and not to be resolved solely in terms of higher salaries. Nevertheless the inequalities here among regions in our country as well as the low minimum salaries paid in many institutions both public and private, lead one to believe that unless there is some nation-wide effort state by state to set minimum salary scales for college teaching at various levels of rank, an important handicap to good teaching and to encouraging good teachers will still persist. Hence there seems the need for the initiating of a policy under which minimum salaries for different ranks of college teachers would be established by each state, and under prescribed conditions Federal grants-in-aid might well be made to the states where necessary to help salaries measure up to such minima. Such a program would certainly go a considerable distance toward establishing a scale of compensation which would mean that the college teaching profession could compete more adequately than now with the other callings which attract young men and women of first-class ability.

44

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

I shall not take time here to do more than mention the relevance to my theme of the important reforms necessary in the graduate work in universities where college and junior college teachers are preponderantly trained. Your own Professor Howard Mumford Jones in his stimulating volume Education and World Tragedy5 has well characterized the inwardness of this problem and has made interesting proposals for correction of the present unsound situation. Especially when we envisage the problem of the training necessary for a considerable new army of junior college teachers we realize that we have been tardy in facing up to the real issues here, if the end we have in view is a body of teachers devoted to teaching, interested in young people, and concerned to forward their all-round development in the way that the new, broadened, general education must affirm. Two further important planks in a program of equalizing educational opportunities will therefore have to do with Federal grants-in-aid for teachers' salaries, and with the vast improvement of college-teacher education at the graduate-school level. Mention should also be made of the problem of 6 Harvard

University Press (Cambridge, Mass., 1946).

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

45

the adequacy of facilities for graduate-school education both with the objective of research and the objective of teacher training, and also of

the

adequacy of professional schools for the other major callings requiring such advanced training. T h e r e is in m y opinion need for examination from the national point of view of the adequacy of these provisions. I f , as may well prove to be the case, our shortcomings in graduate and professional schools are found to be important, in the realm of medical education, for example, w e shall confront

the

problem

of

where

responsibility

should be assumed for the enlargement of medical schools or the creation of new schools. T h a t this whole area requires fresh objective study seems unquestionable. THE

ISSUE OF FEDERAL

ASSISTANCE

Assurance of the improved and adequate conduct of our entire higher educational program seems thus clearly to require a new and more systematic relationship of our Federal government to the colleges and universities. T h e r e are many who confront this prospect with profound misgivings.

Indeed, there is too much

sloganized

thinking which reiterates that Federal funds mean Federal control.

Federal funds in the past have

46

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

not necessarily meant Federal control, nor do they need to in the future, provided our objective is securely held in view, to keep the major initiative and administrative responsibility in the hands of the several states and their localities. I, for one, am prepared to acknowledge that assurance of a higher quality of college education throughout our land is a matter which can no longer be left solely to state or to private initiative and responsibility. This matter is too closely tied up with the quality as well as the quantity of our trained citizenship at the national level to be left to the arbitrary and too often restricted efforts of the individual states. In short, the necessary significance of education, including higher education, in assuring the integrity of our nation's welfare requires from now on a national policy and a national focus for the best possible coherent and sustained program. Nor need we necessarily view this trend with misgiving if we realize that in a great society like ours we are witnessing an almost inevitable socializing process which has its counterparts, for example, in public health, in philanthropy, in social security measures, and in housing. Professor John K. Norton, who has devoted long and expert attention to the fiscal phases of

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

47

education, has summarized his view as follows: "The bugaboo of Federal control of education is just that—a bugaboo. A century of experience with Federal aid for education has demonstrated the fiscal mechanism whereby Federal aid can go to the states without resulting in Federal control of education." 6 Moreover, that this approach to the financial aspects of an equalizing program is in the realm of practical politics is clearly shown by the active attention being given to measures now in Congress which incorporate some of the provisions here advanced and which are supported by senators from both sides of the chamber. If we are to move, as I believe we shall, in the direction of a progressively generous policy of Federal scholarships and fellowships, of Federal grants for capital purposes to public colleges, and of grants-in-aid to level up teachers' salaries in the poorer states, there clearly must be at the Federal level a strong and capably led agency of educational oversight which can offer leadership and guidance in the direction of fulfulling that national educational policy of which we so sorely stand in need. eff.E.A.

Journal (February, 1947), p. 92.

4

8

EQUALIZING

OPPORTUNITIES

ADMINISTRATIVE ASPECTS—FEDERAL AND STATE

We must, therefore, consider the advisability of a Federal agency of cabinet rank which will have the prestige and the information which will enable it to deal in a constructive way with the departments of education of all the states. One does not have to envisage any standardization of curriculum or facilities in order to recognize that a Federal department could also have great indirect educational value in setting, in conjunction with the states, a number of minimum standards below which institutions would not be allowed to fall if they wished to benefit by the proposed kinds of Federal subventions. Equally important to this whole program is the leveling up throughout our land of the status and competence of state departments of education. There is a startling diversity of state practice on this point and it seems to be generally conceded that there are only thirteen states in which the work of the department of education in the setting of standards and in the accrediting of institutions is carried on at a defensible professional level. The initiation of such a body of fiscal measures as I am proposing could act as a considerable lever to stimulate an increasing number of states

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

49

to improve the quality of state supervision in a way

which

would

be

exceedingly

wholesome.

Indeed, unless and until any given state with which the Federal Government would have to deal has a strong administrative body in responsible relation with the colleges of its state, it would be virtually impossible to administer the type of program here contemplated. Just as the Veterans' Administration has found it essential to utilize the judgments of state accrediting bodies where these exist, so in the post-veteran program it will be essential that each state function vigorously and autonomously in its over-all supervision.

PROPOSALS

SUMMARIZED

T h e outstanding constituent elements in a program

that would

go

a considerable

distance

towards equalization have now been stated.

In

summary they are as follows: ι . An equalizing of the quantity and quality of elementary and secondary education offered in all our states. 2. A program of scholarships, Federally provided where necessary, for needy third and fourth year high-school students.

50

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES 3. Clear and publicized admissions policies for

all colleges with immediate, voluntary abandonment of quotas for minority group members by all private colleges. 4. Use of general capacity and achievement tests rather than course credits as the basis of college entrance. 5. Universal use by colleges of good educational guidance early in the course. 6. Improvement in the curriculum and in the teachers available for students in the first two college years. 7. Provisions of

scholarships

for qualified,

needy college students by Federal grants of up to $ 1 , 1 0 0 a year administered in such a manner as to preclude any but valid educational criteria from having weight in the selection. And inclusion in this program of provisions for fellowships of a larger amount for qualified graduate and professional students. 8. Provisions made by states for systems of free junior colleges, helped as to capital resources and teachers salaries, where needed, by Federal funds. 9. Provisions

for Federal

grants-in-aid

for

capital resources to public colleges, under prescriptions laid down by state boards of education.

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

Personally

I

am prepared

to see such

51

funds

granted also to private non-sectarian colleges. 10. Provisions for establishing minimum salary amounts by states for college teachers of different ranks, with Federal grants-in-aid provided where it can be demonstrated that local funds cannot meet such minima. 1 1 . Improved

methods

of

college

teacher

training. 1 2 . Strengthened

operation

of

state

depart-

ments of education. 1 3 . Placing of the Federal head of the Office of Education in a position of cabinet rank and status. CONCLUSION

I have tried to indicate that the economic and social situation of our population is radically different from the condition of a half century ago and that we are confronted by new educational responsibilities.

I have tried to suggest that the

time is ripe for the formation of something which may accurately be referred to as a national educational policy in which the aspect of higher education would necessarily take its important place. I have tried to suggest that there are basic reasons in our economy why the Federal Government will

52

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

have to affirm a new initiative about, and relationship to, the conduct of higher education both from the point of view of equalizing the opportunity and of making more adequate the provisions. I am personally confident that this broader assumption of Federal effort does not need to carry with it any greater weight of Federal interference than we the citizens decide is wise and expedient. We are proud of our free schools. The pressure to extend virtually free schooling up into the college years is an unescapable and wholesome pressure. But our free schools have not recently meant free schooling for reasons of economic discrepancy which are becoming more widely appreciated, and which I have briefly summarized. And if free schools are not now assuring free schooling, an examination of the alternatives which will achieve this end is overdue. We are responsible for facing the alternatives fully and candidly. For the purpose and the end we have in view are worthy and necessary. If we are not to follow the alternative of a larger measure of Federal aid in the world of college operation, those of us who believe in college education have the duty of advancing a body of other alternatives which give real promise of success. My own position is that such other alternatives

EQUALIZING OPPORTUNITIES

53

as there are have had a century to demonstrate themselves. And they have demonstrated their total inadequacy to our condition. Hence I submit that an open-minded and creative appraisal of the approach I have here outlined becomes for us all a public obligation. Integral to a national view of the educational need of our democratic society is a constructive platform of measures which in combination promise to equalize educational opportunity beyond the secondary school.