ENGINEERING MANPOWER CONCERNS WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 1981 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, Washington, D.C. The committee met at 9:40 a.m., in room 2318, Rayburn House Office Building; Hon. Don Fuqua (chairman of the committee) presiding. Present: Representatives Fuqua, Winn, Brown, Dunn, and Weber. Mr. FUQUA. Yesterday, we heard from a number of witnesses who outlined the extensive problems we now face regarding the engineering and technical manpower. I believe the evidence they presented underscored the severity of a situation that exists not only in our industry and universities, but as well within our military services. We also heard testimony of the need for a broad and comprehensive policy, as well as a national commitment to begin addressing these problems. Today, we will be hearing from a number of important witnesses. They include Mr. Harry Havens, Assistant Comptroller General of the General Accounting Office, who will outline the current situation regarding the Federal role in engineering education and manpower. Second, we are honored to have the respective presidents of the National Academies of Engineering and Science, Dr. Courtland Perkins and Dr. Frank Press, who will provide us with the perspectives of these two important organizations. We regret that the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, Dr. George Keyworth, will be unable to join us today. I understand a statement of the administration's view will be provided for the record at a later date. Also, I would like to ask unanimous consent that photographs may be taken during the course of the hearing. Without objection, so ordered. Our first witness will be Mr. Havens. [The biographical sketch of Mr. Havens follows:] HARRY S. HAVENS Harry S. Havens was designated Assistant Comptroller General for Program Evaluation effective April 18, 1980. In this position, he is responsible for overseeing the operations of the U.S. General Accounting Office's Program Analysis Division and Institute for Program Evaluation. In addition, he is a member of GAO's Program Planning Committee, Assignment Review Group, Executive Resources Board, Budget Committee, and Information Policy Committee. He has additional duties involving overseeing the use of consultants in GAO's work and participating in the development of program evaluation training programs for GAO staff. (111) Prior to his present assignment, Mr. Havens was Director of the Program Analysis Division from 1974 to 1980. Mr. Havens served in the U.S. Navy from 1957 to 1964 and with the Bureau of the Budget (now Office of Management and Budget) from 1964 to 1974. Before coming to GAO in 1974, he was Deputy Chief of the Human Resources Division of OMB and Chief of the Income Maintenance Branch. Mr. Havens graduated from Duke University in 1957 with a B.A. in economics. He attended Oxford University, England from 1957 to 1959 as a Rhodes Scholar, receiving a B.A. in politics and economics in 1959 and the M.A. degree in 1963. Mr. Havens received the Roger W. Jones Award for Executive Leadership in 1980, and the Comptroller General's Group Award for outstanding work on improving GAO effectiveness in 1979. STATEMENT OF HARRY S. HAVENS, ASSISTANT COMPTROLLER GENERAL, GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE, ACCOMPANIED BY MARY HAMILTON, GROUP DIRECTOR, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE; AND MICHAEL P. MCATEE, SCIENCE POLICY ANALYST, GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE Mr. HAVENS. I would like to introduce my colleagues. On my right is Mary Hamilton, group director, Science and Technology. On my left is Michael McAtee, science policy analyst. I have a fairly brief statement, but in the interest of time, I would propose to have that entered into the record and simply summarize the main points. Mr. FUQUA. Without objection, the statement will be made part of the record. Mr. HAVENS. We are pleased to be here to discuss our work, still in progress, on the Federal involvement in engineering education. We have three points that we would like to turn to today. First, what is the nature and extent of Federal involvement in engineering education? Second, how will proposed budget cuts affect Federal involvement? Third, how does Federal involvement relate to current concerns about engineer supply, faculty shortages, obsolete instructional equipment, and curriculum focus? Based on our interim work to date, our findings can be summarized in three fairly straightforward sentences. The Federal involvement in engineering education is generally a byproduct of 40 different activities in 11 civilian agencies, those activities having been designed with other objectives in mind. The proposed fiscal year 1982 budget as of September 15 would increase the total cost for Federal civilian agency support for engineering education by about 16 percent over 1980 levels, mostly in the student financial assistance programs. Third, most civilian agency funding for engineering contributes to the supply of engineering; much less relates to engineering faculty, equipment, curricula. Federal activities that support engineering education either support broad educational objectives or agencies' specific missions. Programs that have broad objectives provide the most support. In 1980, this consisted of 11 programs located in three different agencies providing about $193 million for engineering. The remaining civilian agency support for engineering education is provided by mission agency education programs and by R. & D. grants to academic institutions. In terms of the kinds of support provided, we found the following: Financial assistance for engineering students; new and used instructional equipment; support for an institution's general operation; and development funding for particular departments or areas of study, curricula, and faculty. The proposed fiscal year 1982 budget, as of September 15, 1981, and I stress that date because the 1982 budget is still in flux, would increase overall support for engineering education by 16 percent compared to 1980. This increase is due almost entirely to the 24percent increase in the Department of Education student financial assistance programs. If these programs are excluded, total Federal support would be reduced by 33 percent because 14 of the 39 programs which we identified are slated for termination in 1982. There are four areas of engineering which are considered by observers to be problems: current and future supply of engineers, the current and future supply of engineering faculty, obsolescence of instructional equipment, and the focus of engineering curriculums. Because these concerns have not been precisely defined and the available data are divergent, we did not attempt a rigorous comparison of current Federal efforts with current and projected needs. Înstead, we attempted to generally look at the Federal efforts that appear likely to influence these areas of concern. We found that most civilian agency support for engineering education relates to the supply of engineers. This is nominated by the student financial assistance program. Much less of that support relates to faculty shortages, obsolete instructional equipment, and engineering curriculums. Mr. Chairman, that summarizes the main points of my state ment. [The prepared statement of Mr. Havens follows:] We are pleased to be here to discuss GAO's work in progress on Federal involvement in engineering education. During the past few months we have worked closely with your staff on engineering education issues. Today we will briefly address three questions: --What is the nature and extent of Federal involvement in engineering education? --How will proposed budget cuts affect Federal involve ment? --How does Federal involvement relate to current concerns about engineer supply, faculty shortages, obsolete instructional equipment, and curriculum focus? SCOPE To address these questions, we have developed a comprehensive overview of Federal civilian agency activities that help support engineering education. We included fiscal year 1980 activities and their program and budget information for fiscal years 1980, 1981, and 1982. We did not include programs that focus primarily on continuing education, technician training, post-doctoral study, women and minorities, or international student and faculty exchange. Although the Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration have relevant programs, we did not include them because of time and resource limitations. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS Based on our analyses to date, we can summarize our findings in three statements: --Federal involvement in engineering education is generally --Most civilian agency funding for engineering contributes |