SUPPORT FROM GOVERNMENT 



oncoming rise in college population. Under ever greater popula- 

 tion pressure, no institution can long remain complacent and 

 rigidly limit its admissions, thus shifting responsibility for the 

 growing load to others. If the principle is worth preserving 

 that every capable young person should have the opportunity 

 for higher education, each institution must assume its share of 

 the task, for all exist to serve the public interest. 



The importance of increasing general operating funds can- 

 not easily be exaggerated, and it is properly stressed within the 

 subject of this discussion; for higher education is the matrix 

 within which basic research must continue to develop and flour- 

 isk. We cannot speak realistically about support for basic research 

 without having in view the soundest possible development in 

 both size and quality of our higher educational system. Sound- 

 ness includes the moderation of seeming needs bv prudent man- 

 agement in both the academic and administrative operations. 



After a quarter century of public conditioning, the idea 

 comes almost automatically that of course government must 

 come to the rescue where local efforts fail for whatever reason; 

 and, of course, the federal treasury is inexhaustible. When gov- 

 ernment pays the bill, it costs no one anything. There's no need 

 to worry! 



If the attitude should prevail of relaxedly leaning on gov- 

 ernment to solve the growing problem of keeping higher educa- 

 tion not only solvent but vigorous, the result would surely be 

 that more and more institutions, in trying to keep up with 

 increasing demands, would incur deficits, and government 

 would have to assume the annual operating loss. Moreover, this 

 would not make them more vigorous; more likely, it would have 

 the opposite effect. Several independent estimates indicate a 

 prospective student population of GVi to 7 million in 1969, and 

 a total budget of about double what it is today. It would seem 



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