Daily §§! Trojan
Volume LXVI, Number 55
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, California
Tuesday, December 11, 1973
Aid Bill Clears Congress; Nixon Veto Called Likely
PRICE HIKE—Numerous fast-food vending machines on campus will be subject to an increase in food prices beginning Jan. 1. The vending machine operators cited labor and production costs for the higher prices. See story on page 2. DT photo by Bob Chavez.
BY PETER WONG
Managing Editor
Congress has completed action on a key federal money bill that includes funds for student financial aid in 1974-75. However, President Nixon is expected to veto the bill because it appropriates much more than he requested in his budget.
By a vote of 85-3 Thursday, the Senate approved an appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor and Health, Education and Welfare for 1973-74. The total appropriation was $32.9
USC Tutorial Disbanded
The USC Tutorial Project, which for more than eight years had organized one-to-one tutoring between USC students and slow-learning children from the surrounding community, was disbanded Monday.
The project's recruitment drive, begun in early September, failed to attract new tutors.
Only 25 signups were recorded, as opposed to 120 last year and 170 in 1971-72. Only two of these responded to the staffs follow-up.
ITS FAILURE was the result of a combination of factors.
Among these were a general student apathy; the presence of the Joint Educational Project, which provides community-oriented work as part of regular course credit; and a recruitment policy that was much more soft-sell than had been traditional.
“I think the USC Tutorial Project is just the first victim
of an overall change in student attitudes concerning volunteer work,” said Bob Shiota, director of the Community Action Coordinating Council, of which the project had been a part.
TROY CAMP is hurting, and so is Asian-American Tutorial and several of the other projects.”
Student apathy was only one factor thought to be a cause of the project’s failure, however.
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billion—$1.3 billion more than Nixon’s requests.
THE BILL includes more than $1.5 billion in student financial aid, which will not be actually spent until 1974-75.
Earlier, the House voted 371-33 to approve the bill, which will allow the President to impound $400 million from the appropriation, as long as no program is cut by more than 5%.
The bill will not be sent to the President until a copy is enrolled, or prepared formally for presentation. This may take a few days.
However, once the bill is presented to him, Nixon will have 10 days to sign it, permit it to become law without his signature—or veto it.
No one can predict what Nixon considers the breaking point—and no one knows whether a presidential veto of a bill in excess of such a limit would be sustained in Congress, given Nixon’s current troubles.
THE ISSUE IS important to students, not only in how much they can expect to receive, but also from which programs they can get aid —and if they can get any aid at all, because of differing standards for the programs.
UNIVERSITY MAY BUY LAND
Center for Retarded Opposed
BY KEVIN McKENNA
Assistant City Editor
University officials are prepared, if necessary, to buy a six-acre parcel of the Hoover Redevelopment Project to block a planned center on the site for the trainable mentally retarded.
At a meeting of the Community Redevelopment Agency last Wednesday, the university opposed the sale of the site to the Los Angeles City School District for just under $700,000.
THE UNIVERSITY sue ceeded in getting the agency to postpone any decision on the saleofthe land until Jan. 16.
Leonard R. Wines, executive director of university relations. said the university is not against a facility for the mentally retarded in the area, but “is for housing for the Hoover-USC community.”
The parcel, comprising the eastern two-thirds of the area bounded by Jefferson Boulevard, Orchard Avenue, West 30th Place, and Vermont Avenue, is set aside for housing in the Hoover Redevelopment Project plan.
However, the Community Redevelopment Agency reported that no private contractor had succeeded in obtaining financing for a housing project on the site.
Wines said the university is prepared, if necessary, to purchase and develop the land itself.
“WE WOULD like to see the original plan for private development carried out,
but the university is prelaw?
pared to make an offer for the land if necessary,” he said. “We believe housing is that important.”
Wines and other university officials met Monday with members ofthe Urban Workshop, a non-profit, multidisciplinary community group, in an effort to find ways to proceed with private development of housing on
the site.
He said the proposed facility for the retarded “changes
the original intent of the Hoover plan.”
Ernie Bentfield, assistant manager of the Hoover project, said that although the area is designated for residential use, it may be approved for institutional use without changing the master plan.
“We felt the school district’s plan was a reasonable one, and they were ready to go,” Bentfield said.
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It is also important because if federal funds are not approved soon, students, parents and financial aid officers will have difficulty in making plans for the 1974-75 academic year.
Because an increase in tuition is probable for next year, the federal funding question becomes even more critical to the university.
For many students, federal aid provides the only means by which they can afford to attend USC. If this were to be reduced sharply, the university could not come to the rescue.
FEDERAL AID administered by the university in four separate programs totals $4.6 million this year. This does not include another$4 million in insured loans of 7%, which are decided by banks and other lending institutions.
Pamela H. Walbom, director of the Student Aid Office, said in an interview that her conversations with HEW regional officials indicate that they expect a veto.
Whether a veto would be overridden, however, would depend on the intensity of congressional anger over Watergate and related scandals, she said.
President Nixon requested $31.6 billion Jan. 29 for Labor-HEW7 programs. The House approved $32.8 billion June 26 for such programs. $1.2 billion more than the presidential request. The Senate approved $33.4 billion Oct. 4, $1.8 billion more.
BECAUSE THE House and Senate versions differed the bill was sent Oct. 9 to a joint conference committee from which the compromise was reached.
Would Nixon sign the bill, anyway, and swallow the additional $1.3 billion?
“So long as the Congress follows a responsible course
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FOR SALE—The university may buy this parcel of	mentally retarded and ensure the development of more
land, which faces Jefferson Boulevard and is near Or-	housing. DT photo by Bob Chavez,
chard Avenue, to block the building of a center for the