[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 112 (Wednesday, July 12, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9817-S9820]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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                      EUROPE VIEWS THE IVY LEAGUE

 Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, I do not ordinarily enter into the 
Record speeches that are 6 years old, but I came across a speech given 
by James Perkins, the distinguished former president of Cornell, to the 
Nassau Club in Princeton, NJ, on November 1, 1989.
  It was titled ``Europe Views the Ivy League: With Astonishment and 
Jealousy.''
  Because it contains so many insights into where we are and how we got 
where we are, I think it is worth reprinting in the Congressional 
Record, and I urge my colleague and their staffs to take the time to 
read it.
  For example, he says: ``It is not uncommon for an Ivy League 
university to have a public relations office of a dozen or more people 
and a development office of 50 and sometime as many as 70 full-time 
persons at work on maintaining accurate and up-to-date files on the 
financial prospects of its important alumni. These files would be the 
envy of the CIA and the KGB.''
  As a former Ivy League college president himself, he notes: ``that 
the presidents of Ivy League institutions spent at least 25 percent of 
their professional time on the financial needs of their universities 
and personal attention to both individuals and institutions which can 
provide financial resources to meet its needs.'' He finds a German 
observer, ``reminded his audience that in Japan, it was the public 
universities that restricted their enrollment and so expansion was 
taken care of by the proliferation of private institutions which had, 
of necessity, to live off their tuitions. 

[[Page S 9818]]
The result was the Ivy League experience in reverse. It is the 
universities of Tokyo and Kyoto that are the Harvards, Yales, and 
Princetons of Japan. The best students apply to the prestigious public 
institutions while the privates have to fight to maintain anything like 
the same quality of instruction. While in the United States 80 percent 
of undergraduates are in the public sector, in Japan almost 80 percent 
of students are in private institutions.''
  Many of my colleagues will remember James Perkins as the person who 
headed the Commission on Foreign Language and International Studies 
appointed by President Carter.
  It was one of the finest commissions ever to serve this Nation, and 
no small part of the reason was the leadership of Jim Perkins.
  I ask that the text of his 1989 speech be printed in the Record.
  The speech follows:
       Europe Views the Ivy League With Astonishment and Jealousy

                         (By James A. Perkins)

       European higher education is suffering from three 
     pressures. The first is new limits on public funds after 
     three or four decades of increasing financial support. 
     Consequently, there is a serious effort to secure funds from 
     private sources. In educational systems that have almost been 
     free of student charges, there has been the need to establish 
     tuitions or, in those cases where they exist in small 
     amounts, to increase them. These efforts have not been 
     successful and have often led students to take to the 
     streets. Support from wealthy individuals or corporations is 
     practically non-existent because most European societies see 
     business support as damaging to the intellectual integrity of 
     the university.
       A second pressure comes from the increasing demand to 
     decentralize authority from the central government to regions 
     on the one hand and to the universities on the other. The 
     recognized need for flexibility and the capacity to innovate 
     requires plural rather than uniform arrangements. But the 
     legacy of Napoleon, who viewed higher education as a 
     centralized public function, required equal treatment through 
     a uniform curriculum which could only be installed and 
     managed by a central authority. Efforts to decentralize have 
     had extreme difficulties because local authorities have had 
     little experience in managing educational institutions and 
     the universities themselves do not have a system of 
     governance that assures effective autonomy.
       The two exceptions to this general rule are Western 
     Germany, where the states preceded the establishment of the 
     central government (although they did not create it), and 
     Spain, where Catalonia and the Basque country have had a long 
     history of considerable independence from the central 
     government in Madrid. It is worthy of some note that the 
     education reform law of 1984 in Spain does, in fact, provide 
     for increased educational responsibility for the provinces, 
     which only a half dozen of them have been able to accept.
       A third pressure for change involves the educational 
     consequences of the provision for a strong European community 
     to be established in 1992. There is the possibility of a 
     growing move towards something like the federal system in the 
     United States where the individual countries of Europe are 
     prepared to surrender some of their independence to community 
     authorities.
       On all three counts, the search for private funds, the 
     decentralization of control from central governments and the 
     prospects for a European community with federal overtones--
     all three of these pressures and prospects have led to 
     serious soul-searching on the part of European public 
     officials and educators. It is not surprising that their 
     attention would turn to the experience of the United States 
     which, in one way or another, has had to deal with 
     maintaining a decentralized system, a successful effort to 
     secure private funds for higher
      education, and a federal system that has acquired a 
     reasonable balance between federal and local authorities, 
     along with a substantial private sector.
       It could be that four distinguished European educators 
     decided to study one of the most successful examples of 
     private institutions in the context of a decentralized system 
     on the one hand and a network of connection between 
     universities (both public and private) on the other. The four 
     of them could have decided to make a special study of what we 
     know as the Ivy League. Here are eight private institutions 
     with the highest academic standards, with steady and high 
     demand for admission (in spite of high tuition rates), and 
     having secured what, to European eyes, seems like phenomenal 
     amounts of money, both as endowments under their own control 
     and annual gifts from all sources running into tens of 
     millions of dollars. The question these four educators might 
     have asked themselves was, ``how do they do it and what 
     lessons can we draw from their obvious success?'' They 
     visited the Ivy League universities, studied their governance 
     and academic programs and their financial arrangements in 
     considerable depth and reported on their findings to a large 
     gathering of their colleagues.
       The first critique was by a Swedish social psychologist 
     from the University of Stockholm who reported somewhat as 
     follows. The current success of these 8 institutions finds 
     its roots in the origins of the country where 13 independent 
     colonies became the original states which, on their own 
     initiative, formed a federal government. The United States, 
     he reported, did not have to face the extreme difficulties of 
     decentralizing political power because political power 
     started out decentralized. And each colony was determined to 
     create institutions of higher education long before the 
     successful revolutionary war, the only exception being 
     Cornell which became a land grant university in the 1860s but 
     inherited the academic traditions of its colonial 
     predecessors.
       A second historical fact of importance is, so he reported, 
     that early higher education had powerful religious sponsors 
     which, in turn, reflected the many sects of Protestantism as 
     well as the presence of a Catholic interest in higher 
     education. This diffuse religious background assured the 
     plurality of university design and purpose on the one hand 
     and gave the universities strong support in securing their 
     independence from governments, both federal and state. There 
     was, and is, no Church of England or Lutheran predominance as 
     in Scandinavia, nor Catholic monopoly as in the southern half 
     of Europe. Thus independence and differentiation soon led to 
     competition and provided some of the historical basis for the 
     flourishing of these private institutions.
       Finally, because of their private initiation, they were 
     almost completely dependent upon the tuitions they charged 
     their students which was possible because only a very small 
     fraction of an age group had any interest in higher 
     education. The dependence on tuition meant that from the very 
     earliest days these institutions were sensitive to student 
     and family demand on the one hand and society's needs on the 
     other for a diversity
      of trained citizenry with widely held democratic values. 
     This market orientation helped assure that individual 
     needs could have a priority over government prescription.
       The Swedish educator ended his report by emphasizing that 
     in the United States the states came first and they, in turn, 
     supported the independence of the private college. Thus they 
     never experienced the agony faced by European universities 
     urging their government bureaucracies to let go some of their 
     power and to build up their regions and universities and the 
     capacity to exercise the responsibility that goes with 
     decentralized power.
       His summary point was that not only did the states come 
     first but so did private universities supported almost 
     entirely with private funds. With this background the 
     development of the Ivy League institutions was almost a 
     natural consequence of the early political and social 
     arrangements of the United States.
       The next reporter was a French professor from the 
     University of Paris. He said he accepted the report of his 
     Swedish friend and fully agreed that the processes by which 
     the United States developed from states to a federal system 
     and the fact that the private universities came first as a 
     natural consequences surely described the favorable soil 
     which nourished private institutions like the Ivy League. But 
     he went on to report that this independence is, in modern 
     times, secured by multiple sources of funds to carry on the 
     work of these institutions. The early dependence on tuitions 
     has already been noted, but today, they represent only a part 
     of the needed income. Having carefully excluded government in 
     early days, government has not been welcomed back as an 
     important and, indeed, a decisive source of funds for the 
     research enterprise that has given the university its 
     substantial position in society. Tuitions continue to rise, 
     but, in a concern for equal treatment and social justice, 
     they are offset by the availability of scholarships, loans, 
     and campus jobs that have kept these institutions from 
     becoming intolerably elite. They are elite, but only in a 
     meritocratic sense, and not in a social or economic sense.
       A second source of funds has been gifts from various 
     sources such as corporations, individuals, and particularly 
     alumni of the various institutions involved. Private 
     universities have relied on gifts for many years but now, it 
     is astonishing to report, public universities are beginning 
     to receive large sums of private money also. He said that it 
     seemed to be deep in the American culture that people of 
     wealth should give to charities, their churches, and their 
     educational institutions. Some of the wealthiest donors to 
     higher education, like Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller, 
     really believed that a wealthy man had almost a religious 
     duty to use his wealth for the good of society. It was as if 
     they wished to atone for any sins that might have been 
     committed in the acquisition of their wealth.
       As has been mentioned, the third source of funds from 
     government falls into two categories. State governments have 
     been an almost negligible factor in the financing of Ivy 
     League
      institutions. Once again, he mentioned that Cornell 
     University is something of an exception because the State 
     of New York finances four of its colleges by contracts 
     that provide both its capital and its ongoing expenses. He 
     also found it interesting that many States had now adopted 
     a plan to provide public funds to its private institutions 
     on a formula basis. This means they provide a specified 
     amount of funds based upon the number of recent bachelor's 
     and doctor's degrees granted by the institution in the 
     previous year. This process effectively neutralizes the 
     prospect of undue interference coming along with state 
     money.

[[Page S 9819]]

       With respect to the federal government, the Ivy League 
     institutions receive funds based on the programs they pursue 
     that are of interest to the federal government. Thus, 
     scientific research, undergraduate scholarships, and 
     occasional fellowship programs come to these universities not 
     based upon a judgment of the university as such but rather 
     the value of the programs they pursue as part of the federal 
     interest. It was not many years ago, he reported, that there 
     was a large debate in the United States as to whether federal 
     money should go directly to the institutions. However, this 
     view did not prevail because it was felt that it would 
     interfere with state responsibility on the one hand and the 
     independence of the universities, both public and private, on 
     the other.
       Finally, he reported, that in the last 40 years there had 
     been an astonishing increase in support of private 
     universities in general and the Ivy League in particular from 
     business corporations. In 1988 higher education had received 
     over $2 billion of funds with a substantial fraction of this 
     money paid to private universities in general and to the Ivy 
     League in particular. He reported that universities had been 
     able to receive this money, just as they had from government, 
     through a process that effectively protected their 
     independence from having the business interests exercise 
     undue influence over its teaching programs. He stated, 
     however, that in the area of research there was large debate 
     in process in the United States as to whether the desire to 
     acquire business corporations as partners in various research 
     enterprises was not raising danger flags on the integrity of 
     the research enterprise, compromising the primary university 
     preoccupation with basic research, and forcing an imbalance 
     in curricular interests in favor of the more short-run 
     interests of profit-oriented commercial enterprises. He 
     thought that this debate should be followed with interest by 
     the European countries that were looking to business as a 
     source of replacement funds for reduced government 
     expenditures.
       His main point was that these four sources of financial 
     support--tuitions, gifts, government, and business--not only 
     were important in themselves but, together, they helped 
     assure the independence of the university by balancing both 
     the funds and their interests in a way that would insure both 
     the development and the independence of their institutions.
       The next critique was presented by a Professor of the 
     School of Architecture at the University of Rome. She said 
     that she
      fully supported the presentations of her two colleagues that 
     the educational quality and institutional success of the 
     Ivy League schools had to be traced to their colonial 
     origins and the current success in arranging for financial 
     support from multiple sources. However, she said that to 
     these two primary factors must be added the skillful 
     development of institutional loyalty on the part of alumni 
     and friends--especially alumni. Looking at the U.S. scene 
     from Europe, the strong, emotional attachment and loyalty 
     to their universities on the part of their graduates is a 
     distinctive feature of the higher educational scene. Among 
     all the institutions, it is the private ones which have 
     been, of necessity, most successful since private 
     contributions are a decisive part of their total income. 
     And of private institutions, perhaps the Ivy League has 
     developed the process of securing alumni support to the 
     highest level of both art and governance.
       She pointed out that this highly developed institutional 
     loyalty has produced a continuing influx of funds for 
     operating expenses, for capital buildings, and endowments. 
     But this financial support has not come by chance. She was 
     astonished to find that the development of institutional 
     loyalty started soon after a student's original entry. Even 
     the student newspapers carry reports of the latest 
     benefactions. They also were likely to headline the 
     achievements of its more distinguished, or at least more 
     visible, alumni. Their football teams, whether they won or 
     lost, receive continuous and vocal support from the 
     university's alumni. And all of this adds to the central 
     notions of pride in the university and encourages their 
     interest to assure their university's financial health.
       But all this requires hard and careful work by 
     professionals to make sure that the university's activities 
     continually appear in the press and on television. At the 
     same time, every effort is made to encourage alumni to return 
     to the campus, not only for athletic events, but also for 
     lectures and public events of interest to alumni.
       To assure the success of this activity, the university has 
     a very substantial office concerned with constructive public 
     relations on the one hand and having an up-to-date knowledge 
     about the potential of key individuals for making financial 
     contributions to the university. It is not uncommon for an 
     Ivy League university to have a public relations office of a 
     dozen or more people and a development office of 50 and 
     sometimes as many as 70 full-time persons at work on 
     maintaining accurate and up-to-date files on the financial 
     prospects of its important alumni. These files would be the 
     envy of the CIA and the KGB. Furthermore, these development 
     offices work closely with university management and faculty 
     leadership to see that these key individuals become members 
     of important departmental advisory committees, leading 
     members of the alumni council, and are promoted to membership 
     on boards of trustees. She found that the presidents of Ivy 
     League institutions spent at least 25% of their professional 
     time on the financial needs of their universities and 
     personal attention to both individuals and institutions which 
     can provide financial resources to meet its needs.
       In summary, she said, the business of raising money for 
     private institutions, like the members of the Ivy League, is 
     a big business, requiring many professionals, very hard work, 
     and careful attention to matching needs and sources of funds 
     over a long period of time. She could not fail to mention to 
     her European colleagues, who may believe that securing 
     private support was merely a matter of just asking for it, 
     that it required considerable attention and substantial 
     offices over a long period of time.
       The fourth and final rapporteur was the German Director for 
     Higher Education in the Ministry of Education and Science. 
     He, also, reported on the importance of early history, 
     multiple financial sources, and the sophisticated fundraising 
     efforts of the Ivy League universities as decisive factors in 
     their current success.
       But he was astonished to discover how little the Ivy League 
     institutions themselves recognized the role of public bodies 
     in assuring this success. He reminded his audience that it 
     was the privilege of the Ivy League schools to remain both 
     selective and relatively small in their admissions which made 
     it possible for them to concentrate on the quality of their 
     education and research. He pointed out that in the great 
     expansion of higher education in recent decades it was public 
     institutions which took in almost 80% of this explosive 
     demand for higher education. Without this expansion of pubic 
     universities, the pressure on the Ivy League schools to 
     double or even quadruple their numbers would have been 
     irresistible. They would either have to have become much 
     larger or there would have to have been 3 or 4 times as many, 
     which could not possibly be of the same quality.
       Diverting from the European scene for a moment, he reminded 
     his audience that in Japan, it was the public universities 
     that restricted their enrollment and so expansion was taken 
     care of by the proliferation of private institutions which 
     had, of necessity, to live off their tuitions. The result was 
     the Ivy League experience in reverse. It is the universities 
     of Tokyo and Kyoto that are the Harvards, Yales, and 
     Princetons of Japan. The best students apply to the 
     prestigious public institutions while the privates have to 
     fight to maintain anything like the same quality of 
     institution. While in the United States 80% of undergraduates 
     are in the pubic sector, in Japan almost 80% of students are 
     in private institutions
       The German rapporteur ended by repeating that, in his 
     judgment, the administrations and faculties of the Ivy League 
     should recognize that Harvard must be grateful to the 
     University of Massachusetts, Yale to the University of 
     Connecticut, and Princeton to the public universities of 
     Rutgers, Trenton State, and Mercer County Community College. 
     They should view these institutions as their unsung friends, 
     making it possible for them to be universities with world 
     reputations for high quality and institutional success.
       The final European report was by the former Vice Chancellor 
     of Sussex University in England. He said it was his 
     assignment
      to bring the discussion out of the euphoric clouds of 
     astonishment and jealousy. In other words, he, speaking 
     for the group, felt they should record some concerns they 
     had about the future of the Ivy League universities.
       They had been very successful in being able to continuously 
     raise tuitions to meet their rising costs. But now these 
     increases were going up faster than inflation and faster than 
     the increase in personal incomes. They had already heard 
     rumblings of discontent on the part of many who felt they 
     could not afford these higher costs which available 
     scholarship funds, particularly for middle income groups, 
     could not fully compensate. They believed the time is not far 
     off when there would be a strong reaction to these increases 
     which would certainly come with any serious recession. In 
     short, the golden age of the Ivy League may be here and now 
     but perhaps not forever.
       A second concern was the widely understood knowledge of the 
     great wealth of these institutions with endowments, in some 
     cases, of well over $1 billion and annual gifts in excess of 
     $30 million a year. As the view persists and expands that the 
     Ivy League universities are extremely well off, it will 
     become more difficult to secure support in the face of the 
     rising concerns of drug abuse, the deteriorating environment, 
     and the obvious need to refurbish the physical infrastructure 
     of the nation.
       A third concern that must be on the list of these 
     institutions is the rising quality of both instruction and 
     research at the public universities and their recent 
     successful efforts to raise private funds. Indeed, he 
     reported, two of the five wealthiest educational systems, in 
     terms of endowment, were public--Texas and California. And 
     reports of large and successful endowment drives and annual 
     fundraising on the part of the large public universities had 
     become commonplace in the press. The private universities are 
     obviously uneasy at the successful invasion of the private 
     sector by the public universities. But they have no easy 
     reply to the counter-complaint that public funds, both 
     federal and now state, are finding their way into the private 
     institutions.

[[Page S 9820]]

       To top off this report on the fragility of success, the 
     Englishman said that perhaps the biggest difficulty he and 
     his colleagues saw in the Ivy League was a tendency towards 
     complacency. They felt they ``had it made'' and deserved 
     support just because they were who they were. He was 
     sensitive to this matter because he felt that some of the 
     difficulties of Oxford and Cambridge in his own country was 
     traceable to their belief that they had a right to public 
     support which it was the government's duty to make good.
       However, he concluded by saying that, as Europeans, they 
     were jealous of Ivy League success, astonished at the way it 
     was accomplished, but far from clear as to how far the U.S. 
     experience could be transferred to Europe. He thought it was 
     impossible to believe that anything like the Ivy League could 
     be reproduced in Europe. The heavy hand of the Napoleonic 
     belief that the university was a public utility, the faculty 
     appropriately civil servants, and the chief administrators 
     who reigned but did not rule would preclude any similar 
     development. Their higher education would remain public, but 
     he did see the real possibility that there would be an 
     increase in private support of these public institutions and 
     a closer relationship between them and the private sector 
     that would take the form of tuitions providing a larger 
     fraction of income and the business community a larger 
     fraction of research as well as of general costs. On this 
     last score, the hard work of the Ivy League universities over 
     decades of time was a lesson that all European universities 
     could well take to heart.
     

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