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FUNDING THE FUTURE THROUGH R AND D

Help for the Sciences

In 1950 the National Science Foundation began an annual survey of funding available from various sources for use in research and development, with a special emphasis, as one might expect, on funds available for scientific R and D. The results of the first survey, which covered the year 1953, showed research at the country's colleges and universities was big business but not big enough. In 1953 $334 million was expended at American institutions of higher education for R and D; the total national expenditure was $5.2 billion, of which 53 percent came from federal sources. By 1960 R and D expenditures had jumped to $825 million at universities as compared to a total of $13.7 billion of which 63.7 percent came from federal sources. In short, only about 6 percent of the nation's research and development was on college campuses, and the percentage of expended money that came from industry shrunk over the decade.

University Response

The lesson seemed clear. Universities could be called upon to produce scientists and mathematicians to meet the challenges of the future, but after they were trained, big business put them to work. Doctoral degrees in the hard sciences, mathematics, and education grew slightly over the decade as funding promoted better programs. But universities did not respond well to the challenge of producing more scientists. What they did prove adept at was producing more teachers. In 1959 there were over 1,000 doctorates awarded in each of only two fields: education, 1,549, and chemistry, 1,054. The next highest total was in engineering, with 699.