The Need for New Guidelines
A bachelor’s degree is well on the way to becoming a necessity for young Americans, and graduate study is also expanding rapidly. In the best interests of American society, the growth of both undergraduate and graduate schools must continue to accelerate.
Colleges and universities are hard pressed to meet the high costs of growth. Both public and private institutions are severely strained by increasing costs of operation even aside from those of expansion. And for the individual student and his family, the costs of college attendance are rising faster than incomes are rising - not only because of the rapid escalation of tuition and fees, but also because of other increasing costs: room and board, books and incidentals, and the implicit cost of income unearned during college years.
Extensive federal support of higher education will clearly be necessary; the debate is not over this essential point. Rather, the problem is to re-examine the historic interest of the federal government in higher education and the many current federal programs and to set new guidelines for the role of the federal government.
