what we can to help them as they return and adjust themselves to civil life and for those who can profit from further education, the privileges of S. 1138 serve to pay that obligation. One can add, too, that the smaller the monthly selective service calls, the more important it is that those who do give military service be granted these educational opportunities upon its fulfillment. Simple equity requires this, a point that was eloquently put forth by Representative Patman. It is for all these reasons that I am here to endorse and lend support to this proposal to provide educational privileges for postKorean veterans, to extend them into the future and to make them. retroactive to the cutoff date of January 31, 1955.

I would hope the Congress would act promptly on this bill, to the end that eligible individuals can plan to take advantage of its benefits by entering college in the fall of 1960.

I thank you for this opportunity to appear before you.

Mr. HALEY. Thank you very much, Dr. Willey.

Dr. Willey, let me ask you this question: Is the university that you represent a land-grant college?

Mr. WILLEY. The University of Minnesota is a land-grant college. Mr. HALEY. What is the number of students in attendance? Mr. WILLEY. At the present time we have just under 27,000 collegiate students. That excludes our evening classes and our correspondence courses or any subcollegiate programs.

Mr. HALEY. Under this program approximately 10 percent of the students would benefit by attendance at your college, so to speak?

Mr. WILLEY. What I said, Mr. Chairman, was that we have found now that would permit us to make loans to approximately 10 percent of our students, but our experience indicates that the need for loans far exceeds that percentage.

Mr. HALEY. Thank you very much.

Does the gentleman from Alabama have any questions?

Mr. BOYKIN. I just want to say that you made a great statement. Mr. HALEY. Mr. Nix. do you have any questions?

Mr. Nix. Thank you. You mentioned one thing, Dr. Willey, that you thought satisfactory progress would be more desirable than being in the upper half, and I agree. It seems to me that we ought to have those persons associated with the college who have the responsibility of carrying on the educational affairs of the youngsters, do this evaluating, that it would seem to me they would be in a better position to evaluate the potentialities of the students and it would be much better to have such a system as that than to have this upperhalf provision, which seems to be so positive and there is no appeal from it and I think then the man would be eliminated if he did not stand in that bracket of scholarship; it that correct, sir?

Mr. WILLEY. Yes, sir.

Mr. Nix. Yet, the student might show extraordinary promise and yet not be in the upper bracket.

Mr. WILLEY. Yes.

Mr. NIX. And that is the thing we should seek to avoid.

Mr. WILLEY. The bill does provide, Mr. Nix, that the student who is in the lower half may have the privilege of making a loan but my point would be that since the ability levels in colleges will vary from institution to institution that the student who is in the upper half of one institution may not have exactly the same ability levels as a

student in the upper half of another institution and yet both may be making perfectly satisfactory progress toward a degree and in the end may make an equal contribution.

I think this is a point that the members of your committee might well look at a little more carefully.

Mr. Nix. While one might not have the same ability, nevertheless his potential might be just as great; is that not so?

Mr. WILLEY. Yes.

Mr. Nix. Thank you.

Mr. HALEY. Is that all.

Mr. NIX. Yes.

Mr. HALEY. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Kansas.

Mr. GEORGE. Dr. Willey, you mentioned the students loan program and the amount you have been loaning to them. I wonder if you have had any experience with the non-Communist affidavit, whether this would be detrimental?

Mr. WILLEY. This question, of course, has been raised on our campus, as it has at most institutions. The University of Minnesota faculty has taken the postion that it would be well to work for the removal of the affidavit of association; however, the University of Minnesota has not considered refusing the loans because of that provision in the law. We weigh against any objections that may be raised the fact that we do have all of these Minnesota youngsters-and most of our students come from Minnesota-desperately in need of some help and this is a way of giving them that help.

Mr. GEORGE. Of course, there are a number of universities as you know, whose faculties have decided not to participate.

Mr. WILLEY. That is true.

Mr. GEORGE. As a result, the young people are denied the opportunity of attendng those schools under the program; is that not

correct?

Mr. WILLEY. That is true, at least in participating in the program, yes. We have not taken that position at the University of Minnesota. Mr. GEORGE. But you would favor the elimination of that? Mr. WILLEY. We would favor its elimination.

Mr. GEORGE. Now you mentioned making this retroactive in your last paragraph. You are not contemplating paying back what they have paid for education?

Mr. WILLEY. What I meant was if a student had served until Public Law 550 had expired the time ought to continue so that he would be entitled to the benefits under the proposed new bill.

Mr. GEORGE. Thank you. Let me compliment you for your

statement.

Mr. WILLEY. Thank you very much.

Mr. HALEY. Thank you, Dr. Willey. We were very glad to have had you before us.

STATEMENT OF DR. RUSSELL SEIBERT, VICE PRESIDENT, ACADEMIC AFFAIRS, WESTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY, KALAMAZOO, MICH., IN BEHALF OF MICHIGAN COUNCIL OF STATE COLLEGE PRESIDENTS

Mr. HALEY. We are glad to have you and we see that you have a statement. You may proceed, sir.

Mr. SEIBERT. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is Russell H. Seibert. I am vice president of Academic Affairs for Western Michigan University at Kalamazoo, Mich.

I am here representing the Michigan Council of State College Presidents, of which I am secretary. This council comprises the presidents of the nine State-supported institutions of higher education in Michigan, including, for instance, the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, and the other seven.

The statements I shall make do not represent any official action by these nine presidents, but I have shared these ideas with them and believe they are representative of their opinions.

I have been asked to speak to Senate bill 1138, which provides educational benefits for veterans who have served in the Armed Forces after January 31, 1955. Such educational benefits to ex-servicemen obviously cannot provide an adequate means of meeting our total national needs for financial assistance to students, enabling them to enjoy equal educational opportunity.

I am especially concerned with one group of these students, our ablest young people. I am sure you are aware that only one-half of our best minds, that is of the top 25 percent in mental ability graduating from high school, go on to college. Recent studies of these talented students who do not attend college reveal that between onethird and one-half of them indicate that a lack of money is the principal deterrent to their attending college. The educational benefits made available by the bill before you can therefore make it possible for many young men to receive educational opportunities that would otherwise be unavailable to them; and to this important extent, this bill helps to meet this great national need. We can be sure that as a result many of our ablest young men will, after the interruption of military service, continue their studies and prepare for heavy responsibilities in our society.

I would like to make several other comments about the value of the bill now before you. First, the educational benefits are particularly valuable since they permit a wide range of choice by the individual veteran among the various educational opportunities that are most likely to be of value to him. These opportunities range from advanced professional and scholarly study to on-the-job training in applied skills.

Secondly-and I want to stress this point-the proposed legislation, in the judgment of nearly all of us in higher education I believe, wisely provides for the payment of benefits directly to the individual veteran. The veteran then attends the school or college of his choice. Since our experience across the country appears to be so uniformly favorable, I want to endorse strongly the Provisions of the legislation for direct payment to the veteran.

A third point: The educational allowances proposed in these bills do not grant the same degree of economic assistance to today's veteran as these same dollar amounts did for the Korean veteran. Living costs have increased since 1952 and therefore dormitory charges, rental for housing and expenses for board, tuition, supplies and equipment have also increased in cost to the student. As a result, the sum that a veteran will receive under this bill will support a smaller portion of his educational costs than it did 7 years ago.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I would like to say that in our experience in public higher education in Michigan we have found that the educational benefits provided veterans have made possible educational opportunities for a large number of very able young men who otherwise would not have been able to attend a college or university.

The bill before you will constitute, I believe, a positive contribution to the total educational needs of our Nation. It incorporates the essential principle of direct payment to veterans. The level of allowance though not equal to preceding allowances is substantial. Additional needs of men in this group might perhaps better be met by increasing the loan funds available under the National Defense Education Act.

I would also like to add a word, if I may, about this requirement. in S. 1138 that students be in the upper half of their class in order to receive an outright grant. I think that if the provision was permitted to stand in that way it could have the tendency to encourage students in some instances at least to attend institutions of lower academic standards in order to assure themselves of being in the upper half of their class and it would seem to me it would be much wiser if the provision simply required them to be doing satisfactory work, possibly maintaining a "C" average for them to continue to receive outside grants.

I want to thank you for this opportunity to present this information on behalf of the Michigan Council of State College Presidents. Mr. HALEY. Thank you very much.

I do want to ask you one question, which is probably a little beyond the scope of this bill, but I would like to have an expression from you inasmuch as you apparently represent several colleges here. What do you think is the obligation of the American Government to its young people insofar as assisting them in obtaining a college education is concerned?

Mr. SEIBERT. I would feel that where veterans are concerned there is an obligation to see that some degree of equity between those who served in the Armed Forces and those who were not so called to serve was maintained. Insofar as a general obligation is concerned, I would myself feel that a very fine step had been taken in providing for loans through the National Defense Education Act and loans that were waived under certain circumstances. I would hope that that type of assistance could be increased and continued.

Mr. HALEY. That is a good statement, Doctor. I was just wondering about this situation. Some of the educational institutions of the Nation where loans are made possible have, well you might say, refused to go along and have been unwilling to participate in it because of a loyalty oath that the youngsters might have to take. What is your view on that?

Mr. SEIBERT. A portion of our faculty has taken a very firm stand against the affidavit, although not against the loyalty oath as such. Administratively, the institution that I represent, Western Michigan University, has taken no action; and we have, while we would I think in most instances hope that the affidavit requirement could be done away with, we have no intention of turning back the loan fund because we feel that our students profit and the nation profits from its continuance.

Mr. HALEY. I feel, Doctor, that you need not answer this next question unless you want to. I fail to see why there is so much question over the taking of an oath of this kind, especially where I have to take an oath of office when I become a Member of Congress and every man that enters the armed services must take an oath of office and every President of the United States must take one and every elected official, I presume, or many appointive positions have to take an oath, and I doubt if there are a few people in this Nation who have served in any public capacity whatsoever who have not had to take an oath of allegiance to his country and I just wonder why all of this commotion about taking the oath "that you do not want to work toward the overthrow of the Government that you are receiving this from by force or violence"?

Mr. SEIBERT. I would be glad to personally just say that it has not been my impression that most educators are opposed to the oath of allegiance. I was present at the conference on higher education a year ago when this was discussed and there was no significant group that favored asking the Congress to repeal the oath of allegiance requirement. There was quite a different feeling, however, insofar as the signing of the affidavit was concerned to the effect that a person did not belong to any organization of any type that was subversive and so on; and I think the feeling was that the average student was not in a position to know whether he was or was not a member of an organization of that type. Furthermore, I think there is a strong feeling among educators that if such a requirement is to be part of the loans that are made, or grants of any type that are made to students, then the same affidavit should be required of businessmen, of farmers, and of all others who receive similar types of assistance from the Federal Government. The objection is to having students picked out as a particular group to be asked to take this particular affidavit.

Mr. HALEY. Are there any questions from the gentleman from Alabama?

Mr. BOYKIN. No questions.

Mr. HALEY. Mr. Nix?

Mr. Nix. No questions.

Mr. HALEY. We thank you very much.

STATEMENT OF DR. DONALD E. DEYO, DEAN, MONTGOMERY JUNIOR COLLEGE, ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN JUNIOR COLLEGES, TAKOMA PARK, MD.

Mr. HALEY. Our next witness is Donald E. Devo, dean of Montgomery Junior College of Takoma Park, Md. You may proceed. Mr. DEYO. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is Donald E. Deyo. I am dean of the Montgomery Junior College, Takoma Park, Md. I have served as chairman of the Legislation Commission of the American Association of Junior Colleges, as chairman of the Maryland Association of Junior Colleges, and as president of the Junior College Council of the Middle Atlantic States. At present, I am a member of the Board of Directors of the American Association of Junior Colleges.