Vol. I.XXXIX, No. 31-S I~ e.- LLItLVL LIUL na Thursday, Junel14, 1979 1 y Twelve Pages Ann Arbor, Michigan Ten Cents Student loan overhaul'reduces default, official says WASHINGTON (AP) - Ernest Boyer, the com- The three major forms of student assistance which verify income. missioner of education, asserted yesterday that the have generated the most problems are Basic As a result, the program is costing about $700 million Carter administration has made dramatic progress in Educational Opportunity Grants, awarded to students less than had been anticipated, he said. overhauling the troubled student loan programs. based on need; Guaranteed Student Loans, which are In'the Guaranteed Student Loan program, defaults At an oversight hearing before a House Government made by banks but backed by the government; and have dropped from 357,000 in September 1978 to 283,000 Operations subcommittee, Boyer said the programs National Defense Student Loans, which are made by last month. The default rate shrank from 13.7 per cent are no longer plagued by organizational fragmentation colleges and universities with federally supplied in October 1977 to nine per cent now, he added. and "a runaway default rate that was escalating very money. MEANWHILE, COLLECTIONS on defaults have in- rapidly." Boyer said the basic educational grant program, creased steadily from $9.7 million in 1977 to $26 million "Administratively, we are in charge," the com- which generated 3.9 million applications last year, has so far this year, Boyer said. missioner told the subcommittee on human resources, been improved by establishing a system of eligibility The national defense loan program, which is run by headed by RepL.H. Fountain, (D-N.C.) checks and simplifying its application. colleges and universities, is the one with the most stub- THE GOVERNMENT spends as much as $11 billion THE ELIGIBILITY checks include consultations born problems. Each participating school has a on student assistance with about $5 billion flowing from with the Social Security Administration, Internal revolving fund stocked with 90 per cent federal money the Office of Education, a unit of the Department of Revenue Service, Veterans Administration, and the and 10 per cent college money with which to make Health, Education and Welfare. Aid to Families with Dependent Children program to loans. Kennedy calls Carter comment a misquote From AP and UPI WASHINGTON - "I'm sure the president must have been misquoted," Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) said yesterday. "I think what he meant to say was that he was going to whip in- flation." That's not what others heard the president say-and they say he said it twice: "If Kennedy runs, I'll whip his ass." CARTER'S COMMENT to a group members of Congress at a White House dinner earlier this week touched off the latest political flap between the Democratic president and the Democratic senator who insists he won't challenge Carter in 1980 despite polls that indicate Kennedy would win. In chats with members of Congress and with reporters, the president and some of his top aides are projecting a new upbeat image of Carter as the reigning political champ, tired of suf- fering "draft-Kennedy" talk in silence and as supremely confident as a young Muhammad Ali. At the White House, press secretary Jody Powell said he could not confirm that Carter had made the comment, adding that he had not asked the president about it. BUT POWELL told reporters, "I can confirm, as the president has indicated publicly, that any race hets involved in, he can win and intends to win." Nonetheless, others in the White House lost no time encouraging the widest circulation of Carter's confident view of his 1980 chances. Rep. William Brodhead (D-Mich.) was the first one to make the Carter quote public. Brodhead said he told a reporter for a Detroit newspaper because he was certain "he (Carter) wanted to get it out." BUT WHEN other congressmembers who also heard the remark were called by reporters, they refused to comment, at first, on the grounds that it was-a comment made at a private dinner. Then, White House congressional liaison Frank Moore called Rep. See KENNEDY, Page 2 Waiting for SALT II1At'Phot° The Imperial Castle in Vienna, Austria is the site of iescheduled signing of the SALT II agreement on June 18. President Carter and Soviet Leader Brezhnev plan to meet in the Redoutensaal (hall) of the castle to sign the historic arms limitation accord at the end of their summit meeting. See story, Page5. PRELIMINARY PLANS UP FOR APPROVAL: Regents to consider alumni center By JULIE ENGEBRECHT The project's new designs are scheduled to be presented to If preliminary designs for a proposed Alumni Center are the Regents tomorrow morning, showing the proposed approved tomorrow by the University Board of Regents, the changes. project's planners finally will be able to proceed with the new The building will be located on the corner of S. Ingalls St. building's working drawings. and Washington St.-north of the Michigan League, south of Regents' questions of the selection of an architect-they the Rackham Building, east of the Modern Languages wanted a Michigan firm to design it-and the proposed struc- Building, and west of the Power Center. ture of the building, have forced alumni and university of- IT WAS DESIGNED to blend/in with the buildings around ficials working on the project to reconsider some plans. it, and the architect was chosen especially because of his THE PROPOSAL approving preliminary designs is on the ability to fit a new building into landscape with older agenda again this month because several Regents objected buildings and still make it as attractive as possible, according to features of the center, saying it should be "less obtrusive," to Robert Pangburn, the University's Plant Extension Alumni officials have told the Washington D.C. architect to project engineer for the Alumni Center. scale down the chimneys and redesign a proposed 12-foot The center, which is to house alumni activities on campus wall, according to Rick Bay, assistant executive director of will be funded mostly through alumni gifts. Presently the the Alunmi Association. Alumni Association office is located in the Michigan Union.