3 No report. 56 University of North Carolina...... Includes appropriations for experiment stations, farmers' institutes, and extension work. 2 Including Students Army Corps and other war activities. 88,316 363,051 125,500 866, 414 241,030 1 No report. 2 Including Students Army Training Corps, and other war activities. Includes receipts from mill tax. Fertilizer tax. STATISTICAL SUMMARY OF HIGHER EDUCATION, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE, FOR THE YEAR 1917-18. The program of higher education requires buildings, equipment, and a superior teaching force. During the last few years the cost of buildings and equipment in colleges and universities has risen tremendously, just as it has in all parts of the business world. As yet the cost of salaries has not risen to the same extent as the cost of living, and unless the people wish to see their higher institutions staffed with men of inferior ability, it will be necessary to pay salaries sufficiently large to attract teachers of merit and ability. Other conditions have added greatly to the cost of higher education, particularly the great increase in college enrollment in recent years. From 1890 to 1918 the increase in student attendance was 309 per cent at the public institutions and 113 per cent at the privately supported institutions. In three years, from 1917 to 1920, the increase of attendance was 31 per cent at publicly supported institutions and 20 per cent at privately supported institutions. This year it appears that the increase in attendance over last year is about 10 per cent. It goes without saying that these great increases in college attendance require corresponding increases in the funds devoted to higher education. It seems reasonable to suppose, therefore, that the great additions to the expense of building, equipment, and teachers' salaries, accompanied as they are by an unprecedented student enrollment, will require State legislatures to appropriate funds the amount of which was little dreamed of a few years ago. Such a condition is not a matter for apprehension. When the State appropriates money to its departments of government, it is paying its current expenses. When the State appropriates money to education, it is making a wise investment which will yield manifold returns. Liberal support of higher education is good public economy and wise forethought for the future. The people of this country are committed to free elementary and secondary education. They believe that higher education should be within reach of every young man and woman capable of profiting by it. How shall we pay for higher education? It does not seem desirable that the proportion of the income of State colleges and universities raised through the imposition of students' fees should be increased much, if any. Already the average proportion of the total income derived from this source is 22 per cent. The proportion of income received from the Federal Government has until the last few years steadily declined. State universities and colleges can not |