ties, whether pursued in the office, classroom, or laboratory, today require training well beyond that afforded in the 4-year undergraduate curriculum.

MUST EDUCATE PEOPLE MORE NEARLY TO THE LIMIT OF THEIR ABILITY

Programs in support of graduate education are further justified by yet another set of considerations. We know now that gainful employment is correlated to the level of education. As our society develops, automation becomes more widespread-making jobs for well-trained people, but at the same time reducing the opportunities of unskilled and semiskilled workers. There is a limit to what we can do by simply upgrading the skills of the unemployed. We must improve the competence and utilization of our work force at every level over the long run. In my opinion, the only way in which the country can continue to grow and flourish is by educating people more nearly to the limit of their ability and, by so doing, generating the new ideas and inspirations which are the basis for new products, new processes and new institutional forms. It is essential to remember that we live in a world of change. If our country is to survive, the public must be prepared to adapt and learn in order to undertake new challenges. Such a flexibility can best be created by the expansion of educational opportunities.

ADVANCED DEGREES CAN BE INCREASED IF SPECIAL EFFORTS ARE MADE

Specifically as to graduate education in EMP, the Panel concluded that master's degree awards could be raised, and should be raised, from 12,000 annually in 1960 to 30,000 by 1970, and that Ph. D. awards could be increased from 2,900 in 1960 to 7,500 in 1970 if special efforts were taken to:

(a) Provide direct support for additional qualified students; (b) Meet the increased costs of education which far exceed tuition; (c) Assist universities to acquire needed new facilities; and (d) Encourage a wider geographic distribution of centers of academic excellence.

EDUCATIONAL EFFORT IS A BOOTSTRAP OPERATION

Incidentally, the Panel also concluded that the country could well absorb more people with these higher levels of education than the 1970 targets we set. The targets were set, incidentally, by the fact that increasing our educational effort is a bootstrap operation. You have to train Ph. D.'s in order to have an adequate educational capability. If you try to go much faster than this, all of the people being trained and graduated would have to go back into the educational system itself, as faculty. So there is really a limit as to what one can do reasonably without undue strains on the whole system.

STEPPED-UP FEDERAL SUPPORT NECESSARY

The Panel saw this task as involving needed support from States, localities, private sources. But to make any immediate progress toward these goals, the number of "new starts" required in full-time graduate education could be assured only by stepping up Federal support.

PANEL RECOMMENDATIONS STRONGLY ENDORSED BY ADVISORY COMMITTEE AND FEDERAL COUNCIL

The recommendations of the Panel for immediate corrective action were accepted by President's Science Advisory Committee and strong endorsement was obtained from the Federal Council for Science and Technology. The President requested that immediate consideration be given to the report in developing legislative and budget proposals for fiscal year 1964. Of particular relevance were the expansion of NSF facility grant and fellowship programs, launching of a new NSF training grant program, expansion of NDEA fellowship program, establishment of a graduate school grant program, provision of loans for academic facilities, and the expansion of graduate training programs of NASA and HEW.

SUMMARY OF ADMINISTRATION PROPOSALS

The PSAC recommendations are embodied in their report issued in December 1962, entitled "Meeting Manpower Needs in Science and Technology" which I believe we have previously submitted to you. Tables 1 and 2 which I should like to submit with this testimony summarize the administration proposals in support of graduate EMP education and compare the total administration fiscal year 1964 program, including the NASA predoctoral and facility grant programs, with the recommendations of the PSAC Panel. No attempt has been made to make each agency responsible for the training of a supply of manpower adequate to meet its needs in the future. Instead, the objective has been to establish a program in support of graduate education which would incorporate the unique contributions which could be made at the present time only by such mission-oriented agencies as NIH, AEC, and NASA. In addition, we have complemented those programs with the Science Foundation and Office of Education proposals.

(The tables are as follow:)

FEDERAL ASSISTANCE TO GRADUATE EDUCATION IN ENGINEERING, MATHEMATICS, AND PHYSICAL SCIENCES

1 Report of President's Science Advisory Committee "Meeting Manpower Needs in Science and Technology," Dec. 12, 1962.

2 Proposed.

3 Title II of H.R. 3000 (estimated fraction for EMP).

CONGRESSIONAL SUPPORT NEEDED

Dr. WIESNER. I am sure that I will surprise none of you when I say that the lack of legislative enthusiasm for those measures designed to expand the number of Federal stipends for graduate students has been terribly disappointing. I agree wholeheartedly with the PSAC that unless substantially increased support is forthcoming during the next Congress, we will witness a tapering off of graduate enrollments in engineering, mathematics, and the physical sciences which will eventually prove detrimental to technical Federal programs, private enterprise, and universities alike. I hope that those who depend directly upon the services of high-level engineers and scientists-the business executives, university administrators, and Federal program administrators-will come forward in support of these programs.

I urge that members of this committee support the NASA program, but we must look beyond the NASA training program to other broadly conceived measures for the support of graduate education and make it clear to other Members of Congress that the space program, as a user of technical personnel, has a stake, and a very large stake, in the passage of such appropriations and legislation. I believe that the NASA training proposal for fiscal year 1964 was appropriate in scale last January; but, in view of the current situation, the NASA predoctoral program takes on added significance and importance. I doubt if all the NASA-sponsored students will end up in the space program-the competition among employers in 1968 will be stiff. Some will, to be sure, and the rest will make an indirect contribution to the space effort by making the pirating of NASA-sponsored scientists and engineers by nonspace firms less severe, and by helping universities to maintain the quality of their faculties.

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RESPONSIBILITIES OF MANAGERS OF THE SPACE PROGRAM

The space effort epitomizes modern science and technology in the sense that tasks are always changing and growing more challenging. This situation, combined with the scarcity of high-quality technical manpower, suggests two key responsibilities which must be borne by managers of the space program as well as managers of other highly technical activities. First, professional manpower must be treated as a scarce resource and used to best advantage. To economize on professional manpower, one must make every effort to reduce or prevent the obsolescence of human technical skills. I am happy to see that NASA is vigorously encouraging its employees to keep advancing their own knowledge through the use of specially tailored work-study programs for staff members, high-level courses taught by senior staff and a graduate study program for NASA personnel operated in cooperation with universities.

The second responsibility of Federal managers and all users of technical manpower is to encourage the establishment and growth of educational programs in fields of growing importance. NASA, in particular, is in a position to identify kinds of training which will prove to be of great importance in the future. Universities often move slowly to meet educational needs in a growing field of technology and NASA, through its predoctoral programs and other contacts, can encourage these schools to keep pace with today's rapidly changing world, as the National Institutes of Health have done in the past.

NO BASIS FOR FEAR OF SCIENCE OVERWHELMING UNIVERSITIES

I would like to turn now to three educational issues which often generate more heat than light. The first is the question of balance between the sciences and nonscience fields with the university. I once presumed that because we are living in what has been called an age of science that the proportion of university students receiving a scientific or technical education over the years was steadily rising. This, I presumed, was not necessarily undesirable but obviously there would be some point at which the ratio of science students to nonscience students should and would cease changing if a healthy mix of talents in the Nation was to be preserved. But the facts are rather startling. At the bachelor, first degree level, during the first 20 years of this century, the percentage of awards in scientific and engineering fields (including social sciences) ranged between 26 and 40 percent. Since about 1920, it has held very steady at about 35 percent, even during the past 20 years of intensified public interest. This is a substantially lower percentage than exists in England or Russia, for example. At the Ph. D. level, we find that the natural and social sciences, as a percentage of total Ph. D. awards, have declined slightly. Whereas about 68 percent received Ph. D. degrees in engineering and science (including social science) during the first decade, we have been bumping along at a rate of about 63 percent for many, many years. The conclusion I draw from this is that many fears about the overwhelming of our universities by science does not have any basis in historical fact, though it is certainly true that scientific activities grow more and more costly through the years and invariably create strains on academic budgets.