Help from U.S. Industry

Since the end of World War II, harassed college and university presidents have been continuously sounding the alarm. "No matter where we start," said Yale's Whitney Griswold, "every spoke of the wheel leads to the hub: the need for new capital." Nearly half the nation's private colleges are running in the red. The Commission on Financing Higher Education announced in 1952 that U.S. campuses will need at least $3,570,000,000 before 1960 for plant construction alone, and the American Council on Education reported that it will take $5,500,000,000 merely to house the estimated jump in enrollments by 1970. Where was that sort of money to come from? By this week -- with the announcement of a $2,000,000-a-year gift program by General Motors -- one thing had become clear: U.S. industry was well started on a program to give help to U.S. colleges and universities -- and therefore to help itself.

Ford to G.E. Until the crisis became so acute, most companies were satisfied with a restricted sort of giving. They financed a few scholarships and professorships, a set of research projects related to their own work. Some feared that to do more would bring howls of protest from stock holders; others wondered frankly about their legal right to give. Gradually, under the prodding of such men as Alfred P. Sloan Jr., Irving S. Olds, Laird Bell and Frank Abrams, U.S. businessmen began to realize that 1) higher education is industry's best hope for talent, and 2) industry is higher education's best hope for funds.

In the past few years, U.S. business has set up a whole series of plans for giving, in 1951 the Ford Motor Co. announced a program that is now not only financing about 70 scholarships a year for the sons and daughters of its employees, but also giving $500 annually to each private college or university the students happen to choose. The Gulf, Mobile & Ohio Railroad has given more than $185,000 since 1951 to private colleges along its route. Du Pont, a longtime giver, now pours $2,500 grants into the chemistry departments of 50 different campuses, expects to give in various ways $800,000 this year. The Radio Corp. of America will pay for 26 scholarships (at $800) this year, and last year Standard Oil Co. (New Jersey) spread $450,000 over 138 campuses plus $50,000 for the National Fund for Medical Education. Union Carbide's plan: $50,000 for 400 scholarships to more than 30 colleges.

Standard Oil Co. (Indiana), which gave more than $350,000 in 1954, matches its scholarships with equal gifts to each campus. U.S. Steel last year gave $700,000 in unrestricted gifts with the hope that "the institutions find their own individual means of using a portion of each grant for faculty development and compensation." Since 1953 Bethlehem Steel has given $321,000 to the colleges--if privately endowed--of young employees who have completed the company's tough collegiate training program. The Columbia Broadcasting System is giving $32,000 to the alma maters of its own selected executives, and General Electric has promised to match every employee's gift to his college up to $1,000. The amount G.E. will spend in 1955 on all types of grants to education: "substantially more" than $1,000,000.

G.E. to G.M. Of all the plans in effect so far, none is more comprehensive--or more generous--than the program announced this week by General Motors. To the $2,500,000 it already spends annually on special training, fellowships and research, G.M. intends to add $2,000,000 more. Provisions of the new plan:

P: For the various accredited private institutions that have 20 or more graduates at G.M., and to a number of public institutions with a "substantial" number of alumni, the company will provide 250 four-year scholarships each year, will add a $500 to $800 grant to each private college involved. The colleges and universities will pick their own students, but no one campus will get more than five scholarships in any one year.

P: Under a "National Plan," G.M. will award 100 four-year scholarships a year to the graduates of private and public secondary schools in the U.S., Alaska and Hawaii. To get a scholarship, each student must take a competitive examination given by the Educational Testing Service of Princeton, N.J., must then pass review by a special panel of educators. Each private college and university picked by the students will also get the additional $500 to $800 grant.

P: Besides the scholarships, G.M. will give $10,000 each to foundations representing colleges in New York, New England, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Michigan; 535,000 more will go to the United Negro College Fund. Total number of campuses o benefit next fall under all aspects of .he G.M. plan: 306.

Though U.S. corporations are far from using up the 5% tax exemption allowed (they use less than 1% for all types of philanthropy), they have obviously adopted a whole new attitude towards ligher education. And that attitude is as practical and down-to-earth as a balance sheet. "It is not too much to say," observed G.M. President Harlow Curtice this week, "that the future of our nation--even its very survival--is in the hands of our institutions of higher education."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.