The central role of the National Defense Student Loan Program is suggested by the fact that 77% of the student borrowers received loans exclusively from this source, 83% of the freshmen borrowers depended on the loan program to enable then to enter college, and 58% of other undergraduates indicated that the loan would determine their ability to remin in college. Moreover, 30% of them had to finance their entire college expense by means of scholarships, fellowships and loans and 29% of then had to finance three-fourths of their college expenses in this way.

The fact that 55% of the borrowers have been able to reduce the mrber of hours of part-time work and 55% have been helped to avoid adding part-tine work to their daily schedules, indicates that loans are enabling needy students to devote nore of their energies to academic vork.

The survey reveals that 81% of the borrowers are earning their bachelor's degree, 9% their master's, 7% their doctorate and 2% an associate in arts degree. Thirty-seven percent (37%) of then are majoring in education, 16% in science, 6% in mathematics, 10% in engineering, and 3% in nodern foreign languages. Sixty-three percent of all the borrowers plan to teach, of whon 31% are nen and 32% are vonen. Of all the borrowers in this survey, 15% plan to teach in public elementary schools, 38% in public secondary schools, and 10% in college.

The impact of the National Defense Student Loan Program on the 1400 participating institutions of higher education, and on the lives of mny thousands of deserving students in those institutions who are seeking, often agaist heavy odds, to obtain a college education, has been truly significant. Brief references to two or three institutional examples of what this Progran is accomplishing may be illurinating.

A middle-Western university reports that the National Defense Student Loan Progran has not only put at its disposal Federal noney which was badly needed to supplement the institution's own sizable loan funds, but has actually stimulated new donations to those institutional funds. That university in 1959 made loans from its own funds anounting to $148,421, but its institutional loans actually increased to $204,318 in 1960, despite the fact that National Defense loans amounting to $119,605 were also granted in that same year.

A small Tennessee liberal arts college, which draws the majority of its students fron farming families whose incone is dependent upon a single crop, had a very limited amount of loan funds available to needy students prior to its participation in the National Defense Student Loan Progran. During the first eighteen months of the Program 86 students received over $30,000 in National Defense loans, and the following comments are typical of what such assistance means to then and to our nation:

include equally determined measures to invest in human beings-both in their basic education and training and in their more advanced preparation for professional work. Without such measures, the Federal Government will not be carrying out its responsibilities for expanding the base of our economic and military strength."

The National Defense Education Act represents above all else an investment in human beings. And it is an investment that has already paid rich dividends and which promises even greater returns in the immediate future. In keeping with its stated purposes, the act authorized a comprehensive set of programs to strengthen the study of mathematics, sciences, and foreign languages; to identify and encourage able students and to assist those in college to continue there; to expand graduate education so that our supply of qualified college teachers would more nearly approximate our needs; to explore and develop the educational potentials of modern communications media; to expand our facilities for technical education; and to provide assistance for certain other educational areas of critical importance.

The Office of Education has prepared a record of progress to date in forwarding the objectives of this legislation. We are proud of this record, and we are confident that the committee will share our pride in the results of the several programs which this committee did so much to make possible. We have available advance copies of this report on the National Defense Education Act for fiscal 1960, which I submit to the committee for the information of the members.

As this report will show, tremendous progress has been made under this act in the short period of its effective operation. Yet much remains to be done to achieve fully the objectives of the act, and certain additional educational needs of a basic character have become evident since 1958. Also, close and continuous study of the operation of the programs authorized by the act has shown that a number of technical amendments are needed to facilitate its administration. The proposals we have made for amendments represent our considered judgment as to educational needs today and in the foreseeable future.

Two major considerations are reflected in these proposals. First, we have considered the act in relation to other major educational proposals of the administration with a view to promoting a sound, coordinated Federal effort to assist in strengthening and improving education at all levels. Therefore, as my testimony will explain, we have recommended a 3-year extension of certain titles of the act in order that they may be reconsidered in relation to more general Federal aid programs which we hope the Congress will authorize. Second, we have concluded, after the most careful study, that there is a long-term need for the kind of assistance afforded by certain other titles of the act. Accordingly, we recommend a continuing authorization for those programs.

We are also recommending that, throughout the act, the ceilings on the amounts authorized to be appropriated be eliminated. This change would leave to the normal budgetary and appropriation process each year the determination of the Federal funds which would be made available for carrying out the various provisions of the act in relation to changing needs.

My purpose today is to review for the committee the major proposals we are making for amendment and expansion of the act. Other important recommendations are outlined in Secretary Ribicoff's letter to the President of April 21, 1961, which has been transmitted to the Congress by President Kennedy.

I shall proceed now, Mr. Chairman, to discuss our recommendations under each title.

TITLE II: LOANS TO COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

Under title II more than 200,000 students in 1,400 participating institutions have received educational loans. Furthermore, through the influence of this program, loans have become one of the major forms of financial assistance to college and university students. Far from supplanting student loan programs previously existing, the title II program, by serving as a model, has apparently stimulated the use of other loan funds controlled by higher educational institutions.

Student loans are now an established and integral part of institutional student financial aid programs, and with the expected twofold increase in enrollments by 1970 and with the rising costs of education there is a continuing need for such funds. Consequently, we urge that Federal participation in college loan funds be continued on a permanent basis. The contributions which the Federal Government and the institutions will be called upon to make to the funds, in order to maintain them as desired levels, will eventually diminish as the program matures and as loans are repaid with interest.

It is further proposed that the provisions for forgiveness of up to one-half of the loan for borrowers who become teachers in public elementary and secondary schools be extended to include also borrowers who become teachers in our colleges and universities. We also recommend that the ceiling on annual Federal contributions to a single institutional student loan fund be raised from $250,000 to $500,000, so that students at larger institutions may have equal loan opportunities with students attending small institutions.

TITLE III: STRENGTHENING SELECTED AREAS OF ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY INSTRUCTION

Title III has greatly aided and stimulated improved statewide leadership in mathematics, science, and modern foreign language instruction and has increased the availability and quality of the laboratories and other special equip ment and facilities needed in our elementary and secondary schools for these fields of study. Under this title there has been a sixfold increase in the number of professional supervisory personnel employed by State education agencies in the instructional areas designated for assistance-science, mathematics, and modern foreign languages. The number of electronic language laboratories installed in the Nation's high schools has increased from 64 to 2,500; and some 57,000 local projects for the improvement of instruction in these fields were approved by State education agencies during the first 21 months of the act. During this same period 129 loans were approved for private nonprofit schools.

This shows, indeed, a healthy beginning of an effort to correct for the relative neglect of these subjects. However, we must be alert to other compelling needs which have been neglected. Physical fitness constitutes such a need. There is a positive relationship between a student's physical well-being and his ability to apply himself to his intellectual tasks. Yet there is a startling evidence that far too many American children and youth are not physically fit. History amply demonstrates the relation between the physical vigor of a people and the strength of its institutions and of its capacity for self-defense.

We recommend, accordingly, the continuation for 3 additional years of the programs of financial assistance for strengthening science, mathematics, and modern foreign language instruction in our elementary and secondary schools and the addition of education in physical fitness.

Another amendment would permit the Commissioner of Education to adjust the amounts reserved for loans to private schools (within the present limit of 12 percent of annual appropriations under the title) to the sums needed to meet anticipated demands for loans, and to reallot to schools in other States amounts found to be in excess of the loan needs of private schools in the States to which the amounts were originally allotted. We are also recommending that the interest rate on loans to nonprofit private schools be based on the yields of Government bonds of comparable maturities, rather than on yields of all outstanding bonds, in order to adjust more closely to the actual cost of the loans to the Government, and that the rate be calculated on an annual rather than a monthly basis; these changes will reduce somewhat the current interest rate on these loans, facilitate administration, and provide greater certainty of loan terms on the part of applicants for loans by reducing the fluctuation of interest rates.

Authority would also be provided for the Commissioner to reallot funds which he determines any State is unable to use during any year in carrying out the State and local programs for strengthening instruction in science, mathematics, modern foreign language, and physical fitness.

The proposed 3-year extension of this title will provide an opportunity, toward the end of the period, to appraise its effectiveness and its long-range relationship to measures for more general assistance to our public elementary and secondary schools, such as those which the President recently proposed to the Congress.

TITLE IV: GRADUATE FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM

The graduate fellowship program has carried out admirably the intent of the Congress both in helping to increase the number of college teachers and in increasing the number and geographical spread of our centers of acamedic strength in many important fields. We have just had the pleasure of learning of the first completion of graduate study by a National Defense Education Act fellowship recipient, James H. Simon, who has finished his doctoral studies in mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, in 2 academic years and has accepted a teaching appointment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology beginning

this fall. Dr. Simon is one of nearly 4,000 National Defense Education Ac doctoral candidates who have been given a similar opportunity at 149 higher in stitutions as a result of the fellowship awards of these first 3 years.

This title, with its emphasis on expansion of opportunities for doctoral candi dates in institutions of higher education, and on the award of fellowships to persons who contemplate careers in teaching, will provide a much needed increase in qualified teachers for our colleges and universities. In view of the estimated need for 22,500 additional new faculty members each year, however, greater efforts are necessary.

title

The successful experience which the Office of Education has had with IV, in cooperation with the graduate schools of the country, clearly indicates that this program, enlarged and placed on a continuing basis, will play a key role in assuring that requisite faculty will be available to train the large number of young men and women who will be entering upon higher education in the coming years.

We propose, accordingly, that title IV be made permanent and that the aggregate number of new fellowships to be awarded annually be increased from 1,500 to 5,000, with up to 2,500 to be awarded to persons accepted by institutions establishing new or expanded graduate programs as under the present title.

The remainder of the fellowship would be awarded so as (1) to take advantage of existing underutilized graduate facilities, (2) to encourage college teachers who do not yet have their doctorates to return to their graduate schools to complete their doctoral dissertations, and (3) to assist a modest number of college teachers who are in need of postdoctoral training.

We also recommend that the Commissioner of Education be authorized to appoint substitutes for fellowships vacated before the full term is used. This is not now possible under the act.

We propose that the cost-of-education allowance to the institution attended by a fellowship holder be fixed at $2,500 per fellow in new or expanded graduate programs, and at $2,000 in other programs, in lieu of the varying amounts now authorized. Experience indicates that these amounts are well within the average costs involved, and that the administrative burdens to the institutions and the Federal Government of determining costs on a fellow-by-fellow basis are not warranted. Also, the provisions relating to the amounts of stipends for the fellows would be made more flexible so that they could readily be adjusted in the light of changes in the cost of living and other relevant factors, by making the amounts subject to determination by the Commissioner.

We recommend that the act be amended to give preference in the award of fellowships (except those awarded in connection with new or expanded graduate programs) to those who intend to teach in elementary and secondary schools as well as to those who intend to teach in institutions of higher learning.

TITLE V: GUIDANCE, COUNSELING, AND TESTING

In view of the emphasis of the act upon the encouragement of talented students and upon the related necessity of identifying talent, the progress under title V is particularly significant. The programs authorized by title V have increased the emphasis on excellence in our secondary schools. They have helped to direct the attention of schools and communities to young people of talent and they have helped counsel these students to take the necessary subjects for college entrance. Consequently, many able high school students have been assisted in obtaining entrance into institutions of higher education.

State reports indicate that more high school students, teachers, and their parents have access to the services provided by more qualified counselors in order that the abilities and aptitudes of our children and youth may be more effectively identified and developed. This added service makes substantial contributions to the reduction of school dropouts and more appropriate college and career planning.

Under the State programs authorized by title V(A), there has been a 50percent increase in the number of qualified full-time equivalent counselors employed by secondary schools during the 2-year period. This increase is from about 12,000 to about 18,700, and is a noteworthy addition to the effort to encourage better education for American youth. The national counselor pupil ratio has improved during this time from 1:750 to 1:610, a substantial step toward the accepted ratio of 1:300.

More than 6.8 million aptitude and ability tests were given to public secondary school students in the school year 1959-60 under the act, representing over one

third of the 19 million given in the country. More than 75 percent of all secondary school students were tested in that year. While testing is not a perfect instrument for identifying talent, the contribution of the act toward the national effort in this direction is certainly noteworthy.

The counseling and guidance institutes authorized by title V (B) of the act and under funds already spent or obligated will have assisted in the training of more than 9,000 secondary school counselors. These counselors may be expected to influence at least 2,700,000 secondary students each year.

Although these efforts are of great importance, we recognize that the dropping out of talented young people before completion of secondary school is still a major problem. Intensified efforts must be made through enlarged and improved programs of guidance, counseling, and testing to keep our youth in school until they have reached the highest level of education permitted by their abilities. One important fact about this problem which the act does not recognize is that the attrition in enrollment of talented students often has its origin earlier than the ninth grade. We are, therefore, recommending the continuation of the program for guidance, counseling, and testing for an additional 3 years. The State programs under part A of title V would be extended to the seventh and eighth grades. The institute program under part B-which is now available only to secondary school personnel-would be extended to include elementary school counseling and guidance personnel.

We also propose that additional Federal funds be made available to State educational agencies on a matching basis for improved statewide professional leadership in this field. The States have made substantial gains in improving their programs of professional supervision in guidance, counseling, and testing. However, there were no provisions in the original act for funds to assist in the administration of this program. The absence of this provision has seriously handicapped the States in the effective administration of the program during the past 3 years.

Finally, we recommend that the programs be augmented by authorizing the Commissioner to award traineeships to selected individuals who are able and willing to undertake specialized training in guidance and counseling at institutions of higher education.

TITLE VI: LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

The timeliness and effectiveness of title VI are attested on every hand. The title VI language institutes, under funds already spent or obligated, will have contributed to the training of 7,000 language teachers in the elementary and secondary schools. The languages they teach include French, Spanish, German, Russian, Italian, modern Hebrew, Japanese, and Chinese. The university language centers for the teaching of important languages less commonly taught, and of the related-area studies, now number 47. Fourteen hundred fellowships have been awarded for study in 43 languages, over 1,150 of them in the 6 languages determined by the Commissioner to be critical-Arabic, Chinese, HindiUrdu, Japanese, Portuguese, and Russian.

When we realize that probably millions of our citizens will in the future be called upon to serve their country abroad, and that our posture in the world calls for a more objective understanding of other peoples on the part of every American, both abroad and at home, the importance of the title VI program is most compelling.

We are recommending that the language development programs authorized by title VI of the act be made permanent.

In addition, the Commissioner would be authorized to make grants to enable teachers of modern foreign languages, including college teachers, to obtain advanced training in the foreign country or area where the language they teach is commonly used, and to arrange with institutions of higher education for the establishment of institutes in the field of English as well as modern foreign languages.

Title VI already recognizes the essential unity of the study of a language with the study of the total culture of which the language is a part. Advanced training of foreign language teachers in the countries where languages they teach are spoken is a needed extension of the program. As you well know, academic work alone cannot substitute for actual experience in the culture being studied, Adding English to the language development field would accomplish two important purposes. It would remove a technical barrier which now prevents the act from being used to assist in essential language instruction for the large 69660 0-61- -3