Clark Kerr's Valedictory

Excellence vs. survival

When a railroad worker retires, the company traditionally gives him a gold watch. When Educational Statesman Clark Kerr retires later this month at 68, his nonprofit firm, the 15-member Carnegie Council on Policy Studies in Higher Education, will mark the occasion in its own special style, by issuing a 155-page report on a weighty and favorite theme: the equivocal prospects of U.S. higher education.

Entitled "Three Thousand Futures --the Next Twenty Years in Higher Education," the report warns that U.S. colleges are entering an era of "consumer sovereignty." Laws of the marketplace hold that it is good when the buyer is treated like a king. But the council, like most educators, resists the idea that tuition money should talk too loudly in academia. Schools are already hard-pressed to finance quality instruction in fields like classics and philosophy, which may educate but rarely lead to a paying job.

Besides, budgets are growing tighter.

Total enrollment is expected to shrink dramatically from the present record 11.5 million as the last of the baby-boom generation graduate by 1983. Pinched by the loss of all that tuition and by rising costs, schools will be under pressure to hawk their wares in the student marketplace. As the council sees it, the result will be a shift away from traditional academic disciplines and toward instruction in vocational skills like nursing and accounting. The change is already visible in community colleges and lesser-ranked four-year institutions. Observes the report: "Excellence was the theme. Now it is survival."

If schools yield to economic pressures, the council predicts, the considerable esteem in which the public still holds higher education will decline--especially if the 3,000 American colleges begin competing noisily for students and funds. To make matters worse, the council confirms, "fraud, error and abuse" are on the increase among both students and schools. Defaults on low-interest federally insured student loans have totaled $668 million since 1967. And a report by HEW'S inspector general says the incidence of fraud and abuse in the $3.6 billion spent on five major student-financial-aid programs may run as high as 10%.

There are some bright spots. The report rejects the standard view that the 1970s was a "decade of disaster" for higher education. In fact, it claims that pedagogically the decade was among the best ever. College presidents surveyed by the council report that the quality of their faculties improved during the 1970s. Average full-time enrollment rose 16% at private colleges, to an unprecedented 2.5 million --though tuition is generally costlier at private colleges and universities than at public ones. Also, state support of higher education hit a record $16.5 billion. Despite its dire warnings of trouble ahead, the council characteristically remains "on the optimistic side of pessimism."

That penchant for the big picture and the balanced upbeat view reflects the style of Council Chairman Kerr, who taught industrial relations before becoming president of the University of California in 1958. It became the country's most prominent model of what Kerr called a "multiversity," a farflung, state-supported educational emporium that served society in all sorts of ways. While some students were majoring in winemaking or arts and crafts, others were pursuing advanced degrees in psychotherapy or plasma physics. During Kerr's reign, the University of California grew from two to eight main campuses, with 87,000 enrolled students. The multiversity proved all but unmanageable, though for years Kerr succeeded in mediating the divergent demands of students, faculty and California's conservative Regents. But as California schools were hit by the unrest that was soon to turn many a college campus into a shambles, Kerr was attacked by Governor-elect Ronald Reagan. Berkeley, Reagan claimed, was a "hotbed of Communism and homosexuality." In 1967 Kerr was fired. The same year he joined Carnegie.

Last year Kerr let it be known that he planned to retire from the council and devote his time to consulting, lecturing and writing a book on industrial relations. He will also pursue his hobby, growing apples in his Alta, Calif., orchard. The council decided that Kerr was an indispensable man: after five years and 35 comprehensive reports, it has announced it will close its doors at the end of this month.

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