Nevertheless, with our long-held headstart in technical knowledge, we may be able to recapture the ground we have lost and add to it. There appears to be a rising trend in the number of our engineering graduates each year, but a shortage of over 60,000 is expected by 1960. By that year the shortage of physical scientists may exceed 50,000.

Our expanding economy now requires about 35,000 new engineers in addition to 20,000 replacements annually. Civilian and defense needs must be weighed in a delicate balance.

Every command in the Air Force has requirements for professional engineers and scientists. Research and development, communications and electronics, armament engineering, and maintenance engineering all call for officers with an educational equivalent at least that of a bachelor's degree. As of December 1955, however, the percentage of assigned officers in these fields with degrees ranged from 100 percent in research and development to 21 percent in maintenance engineering. Half of the upper 20 percent of high school graduates do not enter college. Thus each year we lose 120,000 to 130,00 potential professional men. To reduce this loss we can give our high school students proper counsel and motivation and also financial assistance for higher education. The percentage of total student fees paid by scholarships and fellowships actually decreased from 7 percent in 1949 to 5 percent

in 1955.

Increasing the number of high school students studying mathematics and science will aggravate the existing shortage of teachers of these subjects. We must therefore add to the attraction and holding power of the teaching profession. Industry and Government can accomplish this by providing teachers with "fringe" benefits such as summer scholarships, and awards comparable to the gift of an automobile to a successful football coach.

However the basic problem is teachers' salaries. We can and must do our part to see that there is a narrowing of the gap between the national rewards in teaching and in industry.

M. A BOLD STRATEGY TO BEAT SHORTAGE

In an article bearing the above title, the president of Massachusetts Institute of Technology has discussed the scarcity of scientists and engineers and related considerations, and offered a four-point plan to reduce the shortage."

DIGEST

To reduce our well-advertised shortages of scientists and engineers we must use incentives instead of directives. We need a bold national program of tactics and strategy to solve the problem.

Things we must not do are: (1) allow the pressure for scientists and engineers to obscure the need for trained personnel in other fields, (2) engage in an academic numbers race with the Soviets, and (3) lower standards of training in order to increase the numbers trained.

Of the top third of our high school graduates (about 300,000 annually) about one-third obtain college degrees, another third apparently do not want to go to college, and the remaining third are financially unable to go. The Nation cannot afford to let any of these be without motivation or means to go.

14 Killian, James R. A Bold Strategy To Meet the Shortage. Life, May 7, 1956, pp. 147-150.

We should begin our attack upon the problem with about 9,000 competitive, annually awarded Federal, scholarships, including: 3,000 for high school students of high ability wishing to study science and engineering; 3,000 for able students given freedom of choice of field of study; and 3,000 for high school students having already mastered such college freshmen subjects as calculus, physics, and English. Girls should be encouraged to compete for the scholarships in each category.

Such a Federal program should be a pump-priming booster effort launched in the hope that adequate private funds will be available to meet the need after 5 years.

Another attack on the problem might be made by a group of the best physicists in the country, who would plan a whole new approach to elementary physics education. A third needed action is a national forum like the recent White House Conference in Education to highlight ways of educating more and better scientists and engineers.

Fourth, we should outline a grand strategy for maintaining our technological advances. The plan should deal not only with manpower and its education, but also the utilization of manpower and personnel policies.

The need for foot soldiers of technology may lessen in the future but the need for flag officers will always be high.

The real problem of institutional training is finding enough great teachers, and expanding without damaging the quality of education and research. It is the glory of American education that the necessary decision can be made freely, institution by institution, and that out of the diversity of views can come a concensus, wiser because unregimented.

N. FEDERAL AID NEEDED AND FEASIBLE NOW

As one part of a 1956 study of Federal Aid to Education in the Light of Educational Crisis Affecting National Security, Col. (now Brig. Gen.) Stephen R. Hanmer, United States Army, gave his reasons for conviction that Federal aid is needed and feasible now-to whatever extent required to meet the educational crisis.15

Immediate action is needed to prevent our losing to Russia the race for technological superiority. Winning the race will provide our principal protection against Russia's masses and the deadly, undeviating purpose of its rulers to establish a Communist world under Russian domination.

In this time of national emergency the Federal Government should not leave to the States an educational responsibility which perhaps they cannot and certainly they will not carry out in time.

For years opponents of Federal aid to education have raised the bugaboo of Federal control of it. Avoidance of Federal control can be assured by simple provisions in the law.

History and commonsense tell us that Federal control will not accompany Federal aid to education unless the people want it that way, and there is abounding evidence that the people do not want it. The trend in the history of education has been toward increasing public support at even higher levels of government-with, at first, public outcry against and, later, public approval of every stage of its

15 Hanmer, Stephen R. Federal Aid to Education in the Light of Educational Crisis Affecting National Security. Industrial College of the Armed Forces, 1956, pp. 73-90.

evolution. This indicates that eventual major Federal support of education is inevitable. In this time of emergency we should act without waiting for the slow evolution.

As reported by Life magazine and as evidenced by various studies, a majority of our people are in favor of Federal aid to public schools. Members of Congress and other leaders failing to push for it are underestimating the temper of the people.

It is hard to understand the anomaly of $12 billion being paid out for economic aid and technical assistance to our allies and failure to provide any comparable Federal alleviation of the educational crisis here in the United States. Without a well-educated citizenry able to do the job that must be done in this atomic age we will lose everything.

We can afford the cost of adequate education for all our people. The White House Conference Committee reported that the Nation as a whole will have the fiscal capacity to finance both an increase in quality and quantity of education. The problem is making available for our educational needs a relatively small percentage of our national income with necessary action at local, State, and Federal levels.

O. FINANCIAL AID AND THE NATIONAL WELFARE

This article by Raymond F. Howes is 1 of 4 dealing with scholarships contained in the College Board Review for the spring of 1956.

DIGEST

The demonstrable demand for college graduates in many areas has for several years exceeded the supply; and the situation will grow worse unless drastic action is taken to relieve it. There seems to be a general recognition that the way to combat the professional manpower shortages is to induce a higher proportion of competent young people to graduate from college.

Estimates of the annual number of qualified high-school graduates who, because of inadequate finances do not enter college vary from 100,000 to 150,000.

Some of the States, notably New York and California, have taken action on the problem. The General Motors scholarship program and the national merit scholarship program are examples of recent, dramatic action by corporations. However, it has not been determined that these programs will make a substantial contribution to the solution of the basic problem-bringing into college students who otherwise would have been unable to attend.

Many of the privately supported national scholarship programs have the effect of augmenting the scholarship resources of institutions of high reputation which already control the bulk of institutional scholarship funds.

Significant developments in the Federal field include: (1) The approaching end of the enormous veterans' educational program, and (2) increasing awareness in the administration and in Congress of the serious national need for additional student aid. One measure before Congress would grant a 30-percent income-tax credit on amounts expended by the taxpayer for college tuition and fees for himself or someone else. Since this would not assist families in the lowest in

come brackets, a supplementary scholarship program must be made available for them.

There is a problem of allocating student aid on a geographical basis, since, if scholarship awards are on the basis of a nationwide achievement test they will be concentrated in 1 or 2 regions.

PART IV. CURRENT PROGRAMS AND

PROPOSALS

CHAPTER VIII

CURRENT FEDERAL AID TO STUDENTS FOR
PROFESSIONAL TRAINING

(Particularly in the Sciences)

A. INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY

Intelligent consideration of bills proposing Federal action to increase the production of scientists, engineers, and other highly trained personnel requires a general understanding of what the Federal Government is already doing in this field.

This chapter and the succeeding chapter deal with various aspects of current Federal participation in the development of professional manpower.

This chapter is concerned with Federal programs giving aid to students for the pursuit of professional training, particularly in the sciences.1

The programs discussed in this chapter, as a whole, provide aid of outstanding importance to professional manpower development. These programs are given special consideration in this report because of the emphasis contained in recent legislative proposals for further Federal promotion of such development. A majority of the recent proposals call for direct or indirect aid to individuals for the pursuit of higher education, particularly in the sciences and engineering.

The existing Federal programs providing such assistance have a number of limitations. The most important of these activities, from the viewpoint of cost and number of students aidednamely, the veterans' educational benefits program-is temporary and subsiding. Educational benefits under the GI bill generally terminated July 25, 1956. It is expected that the number of Korean-conflict beneficiaries will decrease steadily after this year. The influence of this program upon professional manpower development will decline proportionately.

The existing programs principally provide veteran- and military-education opportunities. Excepting veterans' benefits, they emphasize training in the sciences and in engineering, particularly at the graduate level. None of the existing programs has

1 Principal sources: (1) Quattlebaum, Charles A., Federal Aid to Students for Higher Education. (84th Cong., 2d sess. House of Representatives, Committee on Education and Labor, committee print. June 1956. 191 pp.) (2) National Science Foundation, Federal Support for Science Students in Higher Education, 1954. (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1956. 33 pp.) (3) Information obtained from the agencies administering some of the described programs, November 1956.

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