Carnegie Corporation Will Sponsor $100,000 Graduate Education Study

The Carnegie Corporation announced recently that it will sponsor a two-year $100,000 study of graduate education in the United States. Bernard Berelson, professor of Behavioral Sciences at the University of Chicago, will conduct the project.

Berelson, who has been director of the Ford Foundation's behavioral sciences program, will consider the objectives, standards, and functions of the graduate schools in the American system of higher education. He will make a broad review of the history of graduate education and its institutions in order to locate and interpret major trends and active issues.

For the past few months in the University, consideration has been given to such ideas as the possible abolition of the M.A. degree, the shortening of the doctoral dissertation, the lessening of the course requirements for the Ph. D. and, in general, the encouragement of individual research and study.

Among the specific topics which Berelson will survey are the recruitment of students and placement of graduates; relations between graduate education and professional education, and between graduate education and undergraduate programs; the development of post-doctoral programs; and problems of financial support.

In the course of his study, Berelson will interview university presidents, deans, department chairmen, faculty, students, and graduates. His final report will discuss the important problems facing graduate education and make recommendations about the formation of future policies.