Way of a Windfall

The telegrams were necessarily vague, but to the 615 U.S. college and university presidents who got them, they brought the best news of the year. "Your institution," the Ford Foundation wired from Manhattan, "is to be offered [a] grant under [the] foundation's expanded program for faculty raises." No amounts were stated, but the wire services soon had the list in full. Last week, while still awaiting official details from the foundation, the nation's campuses, hospitals and medical schools were reeling excitedly over the biggest ($500 million) foundation windfall in history (TIME, Dec. 19).

Though the foundation has been working on its program for months, it kept its activities top secret. Last March, when it thought it would have only $50 million to spend, it began sending out questionnaires, asking about faculty salaries, enrollments, curriculum and accreditation. At that time it included one stipulation which was later dropped: that each recipient must raise enough money to match its grant. Then, when the Ford Motor Co. decided to put its stock up for public sale, the foundation realized that it would have assets enough to give an additional $210 million to the colleges, $200 million to some 3,500 privately supported hospitals, and $90 million to an as yet undetermined list of privately supported medical schools.

Famed & Obscure. In picking the colleges, the foundation wisely decided to avoid the question of merit. Its list therefore includes every private, four-year institution that emphasizes the liberal arts and sciences and has regional accreditation. Each campus will get a grant that roughly equals last year's payroll for full-time teachers with undergraduate students. The grant must be held intact for ten years, and the interest from it must be used to raise faculty salaries. After ten years the principal of the grant may be spent as the school sees fit. In addition to the $210 million, 126 of the 615 schools will get $50 million in "accomplishment grants" to reward them for the efforts they have made on their own to better their professors' lots. Since these institutions must be primarily concerned with the liberal arts, such schools as Caltech, M.I.T. and Carnegie Tech are excluded.

The grants range from $31,900 for San Francisco's California School of Fine Arts to $5,000,000 for New York University. The list includes names as famed as Harvard ($4,510,000), but there are others scarcely anyone has ever heard of. Pennsylvania has the largest number of beneficiaries (57). North Dakota has only one (Jamestown College), and five states--Arizona, Delaware, New Mexico, Nevada and Wyoming--have none.

Accommodating & Fair. When the news first broke, some 20 colleges wired the foundation in desperation. Because of the stipulation that they must match whatever grants they got, they had simply thrown the original questionnaires in the wastebasket. A few colleges, e.g., Massachusetts' Anna Maria, got their accreditation only the day before the final list was made up. The foundation tried to be accommodating; it also tried to be as fair as possible. Roman Catholic institutions, for instance, which have some teachers who get no salaries, will get grants based on a full payroll.

From all over the U.S. last week, telegrams of thanks poured into the foundation headquarters. The head of one Midwest Roman Catholic hospital wired: "When I received your telegram, I could not believe it. I thought it was a mistake or a misunderstanding or hoax or something. May God bless you for your gift." Added another: "We needed money so badly, but I did not know that you knew it." Meanwhile, some colleges were already making plans. Samples:

P: Rockford (Ill.) College plans to use its $169,800 to help raise all faculty salaries $400 by 1958.

P: California's Occidental College plans raises on the basis of merit and service.

P: Tennessee's Knoxville College (496 students) learned from the newspaper that it could expect $93,200. Invested, as it must be for at least ten years, this will bring in an annual income of about $3,728-- enough to give everyone an extra $100.

P: With its expected $320,900, Iowa's Coe College (880 students) will be able to raise salaries about 5%. But since part of the money is an unrestricted "accomplishment grant," in reward for having upped salaries 76% since 1950, Coe can, if it wishes, spend some on its current building program.

P: Yale, which will get $4,000,900, expects to have $160,000 a year in income. But since this would spread thin over 1,800 teachers, the university is setting up a committee to decide whether an across-the-board raise would be best or not. Yale may also use its "accomplishment grant" on a new laboratory, an electrical engineering building, or another residential college.

All in all, the Ford windfall had given the U.S. college professor a welcome and well-deserved boost. But the foundation is under no illusions that it has produced any sort of cure. In 1954, the college teacher was still at least 20% behind his 1939 purchasing power. The foundation hopes that the main effect of its program will not be to put teachers back where they should be but to focus attention on their plight and to persuade other foundations and corporations to follow the Ford lead. Last week, Princeton University put all this in proper perspective. In spite of its $3,320,400 grant, it firmly announced that there would be no letup whatsoever in current annual efforts to raise a much-needed $1,000,000 more.

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