Seventy-Sixth Year
EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
r- UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS
f and Education Tax-Credi~t Plan Misses the Boat
yPOETRY by MARK R. KILLI NGSWORTH
S AS .m.,":Y t ,. : .5.r.."S t :;: 5 :...,.
ons Are Free. 420 MAYNARD ST.. ANN AR.BOR, MICH.
ill Prevail
NEws PHONE: 764-0552
Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the inidividual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
ESDAY, MARCH 8, 1966 NIGHT EDITOR: CLARENCE FANTO
NIDEA Reversal:
Better Late .. .
THE JOHNSON administration's rever-
sal of policy on student higher educa-
tion loans is a welcome, if somewhat over-
due, development.
Until the President's message to Con-
gress on March 1, it appeared that there
would be no viable federal student loan
prog 'am for the 1966-67 academic year.
On Jan. 8, President Johnson proposed
that the federally-financed NDEA student
loan program be transferred to a new fed-
erally-guaranteed program established
under the Higher Education Act of 1965.
The proposal caught University loan ad-
ministrators by surprise, for they had
been led to believe through November and
December by Office of Education officials
that the NDEA program would be contin-
ued.
Loan administrators here and through-
out the country were then faced with the,
impossible task of changing state laws to
meet with federal requirements for the
new program, submitting their programs
to Washington, and hoping against all
odds that banks would comply.
The task was an impossible one, and
without the reversal in plans announced
by the President last week, many pro-
grams (including the University's which
had to be settled by April) would have
been washed out. -
THIS ENTIRE MESS could have been
averted by planning and foresight on
the part of the federal Office of Educa-
tion and President Johnson's budget plan-
ners.
The Office of Education should have
realized that a program which requires
the cooperation of 50 state governments,
hundreds of universities and colleges and
countless financial institutions cannot be
set up in a period of three or four months,
even if the groundwork has been ade-
quately prepared (which it wasn't).
Acting Editorial Staff
MARK R. KILLINGSWORTH, Editor
BRUCE WASSERSTEIN, Executive Editor
CLARENCE PANTO HARVEY WASSERMAN
Managing Editor Editorial Director
JOHN MEREDITH.......Associate Managing Editor
LEONARD PRATT ........Associate Managing Editor
BABETTE COHN............Personnel Director
CHARLOTTE WOLJTER .... Associate,-Editoral Director
ROBERT CARNEY.......Associate Editorial Director
ROBERT MOORE..... ..... Magazine Editor
Acting Business Staff
SUSAN PERLSTADT, Business Manager
JEFFREY LEEDS.......Associate Business Manager
HARRY BLOCH...............Advertising Manager
STEVEN LOEWENTHAL.........Circulation Manager
ELIZABETH RHEIN.............Personnel Director
VICTOR PTASZNIK ..............Finance Manager
Subscription rate: $4.50 semester by carrier t$5 by
mai; $8 yearly by carrier ($9 by maill
Second class postage paid at Ann Arbor. Mich
Any success would have required an ex-
tensive campaign to educate banks and
assure their participation. It would also
provide ample time for the individual
states to set up their mechanisms for the
administration of the program.
THIS WAS NOT DONE. The banks, not
educated or really encouraged to co-
operate, failed to come through. The
Michigan proposal for administration of
the new loans remained stalled in the
Washington Office of Education. The re-
sult was chaos.
The plan now proposed, although it
calls for a cut of nearly $30 million in
NDEA funds, is quite sensible and is clear-
ly what should have been done in the
first place. The NDEA will still be phased
out, but will remain substantially intact
through the 1966 fiscal year, with prep-
aration for elimination by 1967.
In the interim, both the NDEA and the
federally-guaranteed loan programs will
be in effect. Students who can secure
loans under the new program are encour-
aged to do so.
JNCLUDED IN THE BILL appropriating
NDEA funds is a provision to include
the debt retirement clause of the NDEA
in the new loans. Under the clause, NDEA
debtors who went into secondary or ele-
mentary teaching had the principal of
their loans retired at a rate of 10 per
cent per year, for up to five years.
Thus, a borrower who taught for five
years would only have to repay half of
the amount he borrowed. This provision
will continue to provide a valuable in-
centive for entering the teaching profes-
sion.
This provision, too, should have been
included in the original proposal.
The Department of Health, Education
and Welfare (HEW) represents one of
the most thoroughly professional divi-
sions of the Johnson administration. John
Gardner, HEW secretary, and Francis
Keppel, former commissioner of educa-
tion, now assistant secretary, are both
professional educators.
IT IS DIFFICULT to imagine how they
could have allowed such a near-disaster
to occur.
One suggestion is that in the face of
ever increasing expenditures for Viet Nam
and the general tightening of money in
Washington, the NDEA was hastily scrap-
ped in favor of the much cheaper guar-
anteed ,loan program, perhaps over the
objections of the Office of Education.
Only pressure from loan administrators,
concerned congressmen and possibly
President Johnson's oft-expressed desire
to be remembered as the "education Pres-
ident" prevented the sacrifice.
-STEVE WILDSTROM
THE SENATE will vote this week
on a plan offered by Senator
Ribicoff of Connecticut to provide
income-tax credits for parents and
others who pay college students'
education.
The, plan-cosponsored by such
'odd and disparate Senators as
Hart and McNamara of Michigan,
Thurmond of South Carolina and
Scott of Pennsylvania, Case of
New Jersey and Dodd of Con-
necticut-is an outstanding illus-
stration of all that is wrong with
current thinking about how to get
more children into school.
The tax-credit gimmick, accord-
ing to Ribicoff, is supposed to
provide "tax relief to ea-, the
heavy burden of college costs." A
noble objective-but it ignores
the central problem of this uni-
versity and all others: it is middle
class. This, not the idea of "tax
relief," is the major socio-
economic issue the American uni- '
versity must consider today.
FOR MONEY, not talent, seems
to be a major road to college. A
1960 national survey showed that
nearly half the children of white-
collar workers in the bottom half
of their high-school class went to
college; while only about 17' per
cent of blue collar workers' chil-
dren in the bottom half of their
L n7dsajy
THE COURSE which M a y o r
John Lindsay is compelled to
take in New York City is diffi-
cult, but unavoidable and indis-
pensable. He has to find more
money and to impose new taxes.
Had he been a slick politician
he would have announced the in-
come tax and other taxes very
soon after he was inaugurated.
For in principle it was just as
clear then as it is now that this
would be necessary, and he might
have gained the political advant-
age of making it plainer to every-
one that he was using the bitter
medicine to cure a disease he has
inherited.
Likewise, he could also have
asked for an increase in the sub-
way fare the day after the settle-
ment of the subway strike under
the onerous terms imposed by the
Quill union.
HE HAS CHOSEN instead to
forego political cunning and to
proceed deliberately and without
melodrama. For the city's fi-
nances, he is following in sub-
stance, though not in detail, the
recommendations of the tempor-
ary Commission on City Finances,
a non-partisan group of bankers,
businessmen and experts in pub-
lic administration, which was ap-
pointed by MayorRobert Wagner
in 1963. On Nov. 30, a month be-
fore Mayor Lindsay was inaugu-
rated, the commission issued its
second interim report.
high school class were able to.
Nearly three quarters of white-
collar workers' children in the
upper half of their high-school
class went to college; only 42 per
cent of blue-collar workers' chil-
dren could.
INDEED, Victor Ashe, a writer
for the Yale Daily News, who re-
cently wrote a column favoring the
tax credit plan, did a better job
destroying one's faith in the plan
as a way to end the middle-class
university than most of its critics.
Although some have charged that
the tax-credit plan gives no relief
for those with no taxable income,
he said that "a recent survey at
the University of California found
that only five per cent of the
parents reported an income of
$4000 or less."
In short, when-as a survey has
shown-40 per cent of students at
universities like Michigan State
are driving automobiles to class,
it seems slightly foolish to talk
about "tax relief" to "ease the
heavy burden of college costs."
What is necessary, instead, is an
attack on the middle-class uni-
versity.
Why? There is, to be sure, noth-
ing "wrong" with being middle
class; and to call the University a
"middle-class university" suggests
nothing evil about the bourgeoisie
or the Puritan ethic.
There are, however, two things
wrong with the middle-class uni-
versity. First, when the average
income of a University student's
parents is between $13,000 and
$22,000 (the figures are hazy but
at least indicative), it is obvious
that higher education is no longer
based on ability-but ability to
pay.
SECOND, when there are ap-
parently more students from In-
dia on this campus than there are
American Negroes, one wonders
how accurate an impression of
America that Indian gets. "De-
prived neighborhoods" and "de-
prived children" exist not only
in Harlem or the South Side; they
exist in Grosse Pointe and Glencoe
-and Ann Arbor-as well.
The reasons for the middle-
class university are not at all
obvious-which is perhaps why
misguided plans like the Ribicoff
tax-credit proposal are continually
offered. Environment is a key
factor usually forgotten by such
proposals: it is an environment
which robs the student of motiva-
tion and information essential for
admission to college and deprives,
him utterly of the resources-
educational and financial-neces-
sary for him to stay there.
Thus proposals like the Ribicoff
plan do little or nothing to expand
educational democracy - to make
ability, not ability to pay, the
major reason why a student is in
college.
THIS PARTICULAR proposal
provides for a maximum $325
credit against one's income tax;
it seems fairly clear that an out-
right grant of $325 to a student
struggling through Harlem or cen-
tral Detroit is going to be mean-
ingless.
The argument over high college
fees is equally murky. It is true
that the University's costs for tui-
tion, room and board are now the
highest of the state's colleges and
universities.'
But it is probably just as true
that they could be doubled-or
halved, for that matter-and still
have little effect on educational
democracy, on the income break-
down of University students.
THE BOOKSTORE ISSUE is a
case in point. Ann Arbor mer-
chants are doubtless bleeding stu-
dents dry. But- one wonders, re-'
gardless, what i saving of say $20
annually on books is going to
mean to the average high-school
senior in Chicago's South Side.
Such a saving is. to say the least,
marginal.
Despite what seems an incred-
ible lack of awareness of how to
go about attacking the middle-
class 'university problem. there
are a few signs that the Univer-
sity has at least a glimmer of the
right idea.
Its Opportunity Awards Pro-
gram, for example, attacks not
only the problem of good students
with law family income, but also
attacks their environmental prob-
lems-by stressing active recruit-
ment and counseling as well as
the usual financial aid. Although
the administration at first didn't
want to spend the money, it now
seems ready to expand the pro-
gram.
"The bookstore issue isn't dead,"
John Feldkamp, Vice-President
Cutler's assistant, told SGC some
time ago. "There will be a lot of
things coming out of it."
WHEN ONE CONTRASTS the
$90.000 allotted for the Oppor-
tunity Awards Program with the
$7.9 billion in total University stu-
dent aid and grants, he can only
hope the changes Feldkamp hinted
at will come soon.
0
I'
A9
Tax Plan Po inis. Way for Cities
The crux of the city's financial
trouble is that during the past 10
years expenses have gone up 123
per cent while its income from
taxes has gone up only 74 per
cent. This gap, which is sure to
grow wider, will not in the im-
mediate and foreseeable future be
closed by substantial increases of
state and federal aid.
Nor can it be closed by reducing
expenses. For while there can and
should be some reforms and eco-
nomies, as the temporary com-
mission points out, they cannot be
great enough to close the gap.
The big and essential expendi-
tures for the police, education,
housing and welfare cannot be
cut substantially. Like every other
big city in the country, New York
must spend more and more be-
cause of the growing needs of
its growing population. These big
cities are the focal points of
great changes in the American
way of life. They are compelling
the governments of the cities to
spend more and more, to tax
more and more and to seek more
and more federal and state aid.
FIRST AND foremost among
these great changes there is the
migration of the rural poor to
urban centers. In New York City
this rural migration is preponder-
antly Negro and Puerto Rican.
Then there is, especially in the
older cities like New York, the
obsolescence of the principal fa-
oday
Tomorrow'
By WALTER LIPPMANN
cilities-the aging factories which.
provide employment, the slums
where there should be decent
housing, the congested streets, the
inadequate hospitals, the insuffi-
cient transit, the overcrowded
schools, the rundown and crowded
school buildings.
Then there is the growing ap-
petite of Americans for more and
better services - better education,
medical care and the like. A
greater and greater proportion of
Americans are living in the cities,
and so the fact of the matter is
that a decent society-let alone a
Great Society - will have to be
constructed there.
For ,the near future certain
propositions are given and fixed.
The great urban conglomerations,
of which New York City is the
biggest, will continue to grow, to
become more congested, to require
more public facilities and more
public services and to cost more
money.
IN THE LONG run the nation
will have to make greater contri-
butions to the states and the
cities. It will have to share its tax
surpluses with the hard-pressed
states and the cities. But this will
not be soon, not only because
there is a war but because the
urban populations do not yet have
the political power and influence
in the federal government which
their numbers would call for.
So New York City must itself
find more money. By what means?
The gap between income and out-
go is $600 million. Further bor-
rowing for current expenses would
be disastrous, if indeed it is pos-
sible. Already 14 per cent of -the
city's budget goes to interest on
the debt of the expense budget.
To find $600 million per year
of new revenue-more than the
biennial budget of many states-
one has to look to broadly based
taxes. Other taxes do not produce
sufficient revenue. New York'City
now has three broadly based
taxes: real estate, business and a
sales tax.
The real estate tax may
be raised next year, the legislature
and the voters willing, but the
proposed increase will bring in
only $250-275 million. And the
real estate tax already constitu-
tes a 25 per cent tax on spending
on housing. It is a regressive tax
in that it taxes the poor, who
must spend a larger proportion of
their income on rent, more heav-
ily than it taxes the rich. So the
utility of the real estate tax as a
source of new revenue is very
limited.
New York City already has a
sales tax, which when combined
with the New York State sales tax
is 5 per cent. So high a tax is
charged nowhere else in the
country except in Pennsylvania
and a few counties in Alabama.
Business taxes, now relatively
high and very uneven, need to be
reformed to encourage a healthier
city economy, but they cannot be
made to bring in substantially
more revenue'without destroying
the city's ability to compete with
other areas.
Thus, Mayor Lindsay arrives in-
escapably at the only broadly
based tax which the city has not
used: the personal income tax.
The arguments for imposing this
tax are well made by the tempor-
ary commission: (1) A city income
tax can contribute an element of
"progressivity" to a city tax sys-
tem; (2) A city income tax would
be highly responsive to economic
growth-more so than any exist-
ing city tax; (3) The income tax
is one of the few means available
to the city with which to tab the
total stream of income generated
by the city's economy.
IN THE NEAR future, therefore.
cities like New York; will have to
do what Mayor Lindsay is propos-
ing to do. They will have to tax
themselves more and more in new
ways for the facilities and services
which are indispensable to them.
(c), 1966, The washington Post Co
4
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR:
Pro and Con on Angell's Draft Proposal
e__
. - - ,
4.- --CL -
To the Editor:-
FEW, I THINK, would quarrel
with the resolution, put for-
ward by Prof. Angell and others,
that the College of LS&A condemn
the impressment of its weaker
students and endorse the principle
of random draft.
The Angell Resolution appears
to rest on two assumptions 1) that
the University is an educational
enterprise whose orderly processes
and morale will be subverted by
the latest Selective Service de-
cree and 2) that the University is
a long-recognized agent of social
mobility (Northwest Ordinance
etc.) whose function as such will
be twisted into the opposite one
of locking its students into their
social origins.
-1
'.5'
7
I
To these cogent arguments I
would add a third-public ethics.
Whenever it is proposed that the
University take a moral stand,
many of us figet. We brood about
separation of church, or con-
science, and state; we wonder if
the qualities of a person. if, in
an institution can really assume
short, a public university should
or can be a moral agent.
FORTUNATELY, in the case be-
fore us, a decree without precedent
should close our ranks, for the
University, which has hitherto en-
joyed a dubious ethical neutrality,
is about to be enlisted in the serv-
ice of public immorality: it is be-
ing sucked into the stream of
ethical action whether it likes it
or not.
Our response seems clear.
Whether we view ours as a secular
culture or as one formed by west-
ern riligions, the answer is the
same: men stand equal before the
law and before God, or if you
prefer, before death. Tough the
democratic state superiniposed on
this culture allows the blessings
of aristocratic values in our pri-
equally on every physically eligible
national, in school or out, male or
female. Any "improvement" of
this harsh axiom must at least
be the outcome of thoroughly de-
bated congressional action.
Bureaucratic fiat husbanding
intellectually "pure" gene-pools or
mounting an "efficient" war effort
(in peacetime) is simply not the
way for a civilized democracy,
delicately balancing public and
private engagement, to go about
its business.
THE UNIVERSITY cannot col-
lude in this sorry mess. It must
stand firm, take the matter to the
courts, hope for a sane law ul-
timately from Congress.
-E. A. Wunsch
lecturer in English
Stickling
To the Editor:
LET'S SEE if the proponents of
random drafting of college
stulents aren't stickling on a point
that wisdom suggests we pass by.
So let's admit for now that the
policy of drafting the lower half
of a college classactually does
discriminate against students from
low-income ' families.
Then we ask, is this discrimina-
tion sufficient reason to scrap the
policy, or is it possible that the
policy so well serves nationally-
defined goals that the unfairness
is a trifling consideration?
I think it is clear that to dis-
credit Hershey's policy one must
do more than simply show it is
unfair. The unfairness may simply
be one of the inconveniences we
must put up with if we are to
have an active foreign policy.
TO DISCREDIT the practice of
drafting the less successful stu-
dents, one must establish either
and 1970's. From the looks of
them, both of these positions
would be very difficult to argue.
The question of discriminating
on the basis of family income is a
red herring. If discriminating ac-
cording to probable competence
serves nationally-defined goals,
and if there is a correlation be-
tween probable competence and
family income, then very well,
discrimination which parallels
lines of family income serves na-
tional goals.
THE OBSERVATION that stu-
dents from poor families can't
help being poorly prepared to do
college work is as relevant to the
efficient use of manpower as is
the complaint that all potential
draftees can't help being male.
Where does this leave us?
We see the present draft policy
as a reasonable and efficient
auxiliary to a foreign policy which
contemplates frequent and sub-
stantial commitments of American
troops abroad. But perhaps this
kind of foreign policy is not the
best. And perhaps emphasizing the
discrimination will stir up some
students against our foreign policy
or against the draft itself.
THAT'S ALL to the good. But
perfect and unbending fairness
is a clumsy goal to urge on any
nation. Sometimes considerations
of efficiency and economy earn
priority.
-Craig Colby, '66
No Thanks
To the, Editor:
T HE SELECTIVE SERVICE plan
of Professor Angell and his col-
leagues is unfortunately quite un-
realistic. Admittedly the testing
system somewhat favors the upper
and middle class student.
to allow the proven unproductive
student a chance to remain.
AS ONE of those lower class
students trying to get ahead, I
think could do very nicely with-
out Professor Angell's assistance.
-Robert A. Simpson, '67
-Erwin Johnson, '67E.
--Thomas E. Lipps '67E
Unjustified
To the Editor:
I HAVE a few comments and
questions concerning the new
resolution by Prof. Angell about a
new Selective Service deferment
policy. As I understand from The
Daily article, the faculty sponsors
claim that the new deferment pol-
icy 'penalizes students from lower
socio-economic strata and places
a false emphasis on the mere at-
tainment of grades.'
Although I agree that the Se-
lective Service is itself discrimin-
atory against the lower socio-
economic strata and that college
deferment itself is an example of
such discrimination, I do not see
how the faculty-sponsored resolu-
tion is any more justified than the
other for selection of students
from the University.
If a system based on class stand-
ing discriminates against the low-
er. socio-economic strata, where is
the evidence that these students
get poorer grades than, others?
Taking from my own limited ex-
perience, I have found that the
students who have gotten scholar-
ships because of need and intelli-
gence, and other students who
have had to work to stay in school
have done very well.
OF COURSE I have known oth-
ers who haven't done well, but it
seems to me that the reason for
doing poorly in these cases was
due more to lack of interest in
4:
War Morality
u
, ; - f
:
not believe that there is a com-
plete inverse relationship between
a desire for knowledge and a
grade point average given the
sensitivity of educators and stu-
dent to this problem.
If a system of selection based
on class standing is not justified,
how is one based on random se-
lection justified? Is it more just
to select out any student of this
institution regardless of his aca-
demic interest in it?
Is it more justifiable to ran-
domly select out a student who
may have a greater interest in the
academic opportunities of the
University regardless of his socio-
economic strata than a student
who may have more interest in
social life?
I AGREE THAT discrimination
of any sort is a touch subject and
hard to justify, but that does not
make random selection any more
justifiable.
--Ned Anschuetz,'67
;,,1 1.
To the Editor;
IN HIS EDITORIAL "The Twist-
ed War Morality Degrades
Education" (Feb. 26) Joseph Lit-
ven seeks to link the materialistic
values of students to U.S. policy
in Viet Nam. His attempt to do so
is highly reminiscent of Barry
Goldwater's ill-fated attempt to
link the increase of crime and im-
morality to the growth of federal
power.
American values have developed
over a long period of time and are
not the products of recent U.S.
action in Viet Nam. The grade-
consciousness condemned by Mr.
Litven began long before the U.S.
became involved in the war. It is
true that basing draft deferments
on grades, which Mr. Litven also
y
r i. .
t
LS '
S # E'ii
a'i r ;s ยข
9l