The New York Herald Tribune asked Vice President Nixon and Senator Kennedy for their answers to seven important questions on education, one of the major issues in the presidential election campaign. The questions and answers follow:

     (Mr. Nixon chose to answer the first two questions as one.)
     Q. Should Federal aid to education go to the States?  If so, should  it be onlly for school construction, or also for teachers' salaries, transportation, special science courses or the like? Should Federal aid always be matched by the States?
     Q.  If Federal aid is to be granted, shall it go only to public schools, or to private and parochial schools, too?  Should such aid be withheld from States which have not integrated their classrooms in compliance with the U.S. Supreme Court decision, of 1954?

     A. I support a program of prompt and generous loans and matching grants to the States to accomplish two objectives. First, we must release State and local funds for urgently needed increases in teachers' salaries by assuming a major share of the heavy burden of construction costs - and, where local districts already have undertaken major building programs, by grants for debt retirement. The second object - the direct target of Federal grants-in-aid - is to help meet current classroom shortages in our public school districts, and to wipe out these shortages by 1965.
     The problem of teachers' pay is the greatest single challenge confronting our American educational system today. It is obvious that our schools can never be any better than our teachers. And so salaries must be raised to levels more nearly commensurate than they now are with the rigorous training we demand of our teachers. The best men and women cannot be attracted and retained in the teaching profession at the generally prevailing salary levels.
     At the same time, we must recognize the fact that local control of our public schools is absolutely essential to a free society. One of the I greatest strengths of the American educational process is its freedom from central domination by an all-powerful bureaucracy. In short, we have diversity and vigor and flexible response to local and special needs, rather than rigid uniformity imposed by dictation from Washington.
     To avoid the danger of central control over who teaches and what is taught in the public schools, we should therefore earmark Federal funds to service debts already incurred in some local districts and to help finance new buildings in others - according to a formula that reflects both local need and ability to pay. Local funds then can be used for increased salaries.
     Let us remember that the goal of American education should be this that every individual has the opportunity and the facilities to develop the full range of his inherent ability. There must be no arbitrary barriers, either racial or economic. And where special local effort is being made to provide equal educational opportunity for all our young people, that effort should be reflected in our aid formula.

     Q. Should there be a National Council or Presidential Advisory Commission on Education, composed of leading educators and laymen, to help raise school standards, or should such matters be attacked locally?

     A. The problems of education must be attacked at all levels, as a total national effort. That, of course, is basic. As a part of this effort, we should organize a permanent, top-level Commission on Education to advise the President and the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare.
     The objective of this Commission should be to assure sustained public concern for the problems of education and support for effective action. Such a Commission could provide a continuous evaluation of what is being done, and what should be done, in every field of education. It should help focus the interest of all Americans on the quality of our total effort, from kindergarten to graduate school. This Commission would, of course, make no attempt to impose compulsory, uniform standards on the Nation's schools. True "standards of excellence" cannot be devised on order. To adopt the techniques of totalitarian societies, to marshal all our resources to achieve crash programs by dictation, would be tantamount to saying that individual freedom has failed as the best path to national achievement.
     I am convinced that the American people need only to understand the nature of the challenges we face - and that their response will then be overwhelming.

     Q. Should the Federal Government give scholarships directly to college students? If so, should these scholarships be in all fields of study, or specifically tied down to science and engineering? Should the amount of such a scholarship be fixed or flexible according to need? Who should administer the scholarships, the Federal Government or the colleges?

     A. I favor, in broad outline, the initiation of a national program of scholarships for the ablest of our secondary school graduates. This new program should be considered a top priority target - with between 10,000 and 20,000 annual grants at the start. The program should be administered by the States, and stipends for these undergraduates should be flexible according to need.
     I feel that the time has come to expand our goals beyond a strict emphasis on the priority targets of science and engineering and languages - an emphasis understandably prompted by our concern over the rate of progress in these fields as compared to the Soviet Union. I had this challenge in mind when I proposed recently that Federal, State, and private funds be used to create independent graduate institutions for training and basic research in the physical sciences.
     However, let us remember that education must develop the complete individual. This requires attention to the broad range of arts and sciences. The men and women coming from our colleges and universities must be more than simply scientific and technical materialists - like their two-dimensional counterparts in Communist states. They must be people who can assume the total responsibilities of citizenship in a free society.
     (Mr. Nixon chose to answer the fifth and sixth questions as one.)

     Q. Should existing college and graduate Federal loan programs be expanded?
     Q. Should the Federal Government step up its aid to colleges for construction needs, either through increasing the college housing loan, program or through new matching grants-in-aid?

     A. Because colleges and universities, whether public or private, are just as vital to our education system as our elementary and secondary schools, I support a national aid program which will aim at the following objectives. First, the present Federal loan program for college dormitory construction should be extended, and greatly expanded into a program of both loans and matching grants for classrooms, laboratories and libraries as well. In addition, Federal grants should help finance State commissions to survey and inventory their needs in the field of higher education. This is an essential first step in planning effective action.
     Matching grants to help colleges meet the demand for increased enrollments is particularly important because tuition charges simply do not begin to cover the total cost-per-student of a college education. Help is necessary if we expect to accommodate the additional million, at least, during the next 5 years who want and deserve education beyond the high school.
     An alarming number of first-rate high school students do not go on to college only because they do not have the means to do so. America cannot continue to afford this tragic waste of talent and ability.
     A good start has been made under the National Defense Education Act to provide funds for college student loans and for graduate fellowship. This program should now be extended and greatly expanded.
     We might also give attention to a "refresher" fellowship program for retired military people, for women who have interrupted their formal education to raise families, and for other "second careerists" who offer a potentially valuable reserve of brainpower.

     Q. Should the Federal Government offer a tax deduction, to college students and their parents to help them in meeting rapidly rising tuition fees?

     A. We certainly should consider extending tax credits and tax deductions for educational expenses. Such allowances are already possible in some cases under present tax schedules. Tax deductions would help greatly, for example, the experienced teacher who needs advanced training as a means for promotion, but cannot fit its cost into a tight personal budget. It might also help, as a supplement to a national scholarship program, those fully qualified high school graduates who fail to go on to college because their families cannot meet the increasing costs of higher education. Our brainpower resources are too valuable to let go by any approach that might substantially support a total national effort.

    Q. Should Federal aid to education go to the States? If so, should it be only for school construction, or also for teachers' salaries, transportation, special science courses, or the like? Should Federal aid always be matched by the States?

     A. Federal aid to education via the States is a must. The basic responsibility for education has always been, is, and will continue to be a local responsibility. But today we face the worst school crisis in our national history. Among many facets of this crisis, we are short 135,000 teachers and about 132,000 classrooms, and the demands of a growing population will worsen these deficiencies unless we act fast to correct them. Neither the States nor local communities can shoulder, alone, the immense financial burdens involved in closing these teacher and classroom gaps. That is why Federal aid is so imperative. After all, a well-educated child is as much a natural resource of his Nation as of his State or hometown.
     I strongly favor having this Federal aid encompass not only school construction but teachers' salaries. The two problems are inextricably intertwined. We need more schools per se, to make room for ever bigger floods of pupils, to eradicate the plague of staggered school hours and other bursting-at-the-seams conditions, and to eliminate firetraps (a U.S. Office of Education survey has estimated that 1 in every 5 school buildings is a potential hazard, and another in every 5 a borderline threat).
     At the same time we need more teachers, not just to fill out the presently thin ranks, but to staff the new schools that must be built. And we won't be able to attract more teachers unless we raise the current disgracefully low rates of pay. Professions with educational requirements akin to those of teaching earn, on the average, more than double the average teacher's salary; during this Republican administration, the increase in constant dollars of teachers' earnings has been so minute as to be almost invisible to the naked eye - less than $135 a year.
     It is also well worth noting that it was Mr. Nixon who personally cast a tie-breaking vote last February against a Senate amendment which would have given the States freedom of choice to use Federal aid to improve teachers' salaries.
     The question of the use of Federal funds for transportation involves the question of how widespread or urgent is the need for Federal support in this particular sector. I do not believe that the need to date has been shown to be that pressing.
     As for the use of Federal funds for special science courses and the like, my feeling on this subject is demonstrated by the fact that in 1958 I voted in favor of grants to State educational agencies of $75 million a year for 4 years' improvement of public school instructional facilities in science, mathematics, and modern foreign languages (this is a part of Public Law 85-864).
     As to whether Federal aid should always be matched by the States the principle of having the States match the sums provided by the Federal Government is a safeguard for the wise use of such funds. But, as is well known, the States differ in their financial resources. I do not believe that any child should be deprived of his right to the finest education possible because of an accident of geographical birth. Therefore, I believe that we should supplement the matched funds, in the case of the less wealthy States, with added Federal support.

     Q. If Federal aid is to be granted, shall it go only to public schools, or to private and parochial schools, too? Should such aid be with held from States which have not integrated their classrooms in, compliance with the U.S. ,Supreme Court decision, of 1954?

     A. Federal aid should go only to public schools. The principle of church-State separation precludes aid to parochial schools, and private schools enjoy the abundant resources of private enterprises.
     The Supreme Court's school decision, which I support and which we all must recognize as the law of the land, must be implemented in Federal district courts. The pace of desegregation was to vary from community to community so no sweeping statewide rule would be in order. But I would assume that any Federal aid program should be administered so as not to conflict with the law of the land. The Supreme Court has made it clear that the prohibition against racial discrimination by States and cities applies also to all the activities of the Federal Government. The executive branch must consider itself and all of its programs in line with this constitutional rule of equal treatment. In addition, in order to facilitate the process of desegregation, I favor and have sponsored legislation providing technical and financial assistance to districts facing special problems of transition.

     Q. Should there be a National Council or Presidential Advisory Commission on Education, composed of leading educators and laymen, to help raise school standards, or should such matters be attacked locally?

     A. This is one case where as many cooks as possible would improve, rather than spoil, the broth. The problem of raising school standards has such broad and critical implications for our national survival that we ought to have all the people we can giving it their intelligence, and indeed prayerful consideration, whether in State, local or national groups.
     Educational councils or commissions on every level can be tremendously worthwhile in pointing up what has not been done and what cries out to be done. For example, the handpicked delegates to the White House Conference on Education in December 1955 severely discomfited an administration generically opposed to Federal aid, despite its occasional bland protestations, by roundly defeating resolutions which tried to condemn Federal aid.

     Q. Should the Federal Government give scholarships directly to college students? If so, should these scholarships be an all fields of study, or specifically tied down to science and engineering? Should the amount of such a scholarship be fxed or flexible according to need? Who should administer the scholarships, the Federal Government or the colleges?

     A. One of the most shocking statistics confronting us is that three-fifths of our best high school students do not get to college. No one concerned about the caliber of our citizenry would want to deny to these youngsters the opportunity now deprived them by financial difficulties. I am unequivocally in favor of Federal scholarships for college students.
     One excellent program on this score proposed by the Democratic Advisory Council would set up a Federal-State cooperative scholarship program, the costs to be split equally between the Federal Government and the State. Such scholarships would not be limited to fields of science or engineering. The recipients would be talented and qualified students, selected by an appropriate agency or commission within their own State. The amount of the scholarship would be adjusted to the individual's own financial need, although the total would not exceed $1,000 a year, for a period of up to 4 years-always assuming that the scholar in question kept up his academic record. State rather than Federal administration of the program would be preferable.
     The total number of scholarships to be provided under this plan would start at 25,000 a year and eventually reach 100,000 a year.
     The scope of such a program, in view of the need, is far more realistic than the proposal by President Eisenhower in 1958, for 10,000 scholarships a year under the National Defense Education Act. When that bill reached the Senate, 74 percent of the Republicans there voted to cut the scholarship authorization from $17,500,000 to $5 million, a move which would have limited scholarships to a maximum of $250 per student.

     Q. Should existing college and graduate Federal loan programs be expanded?

     A. Definitely the existing college and graduate Federal loan program should be expanded. It has been estimated that in the decade of the 1960's there will be a 100-percent increase in the number of our college students. Many, as today, will need to borrow to pursue their higher education, and loans should be readily available .to them. We certainly cannot afford to skimp in this vital area when the Russians are spending two-and-a-half times as much of their national income on education as the United States is doing.

     Q. Should the Federal Government step up its aid to colleges for construction needs, either through increasing the college housing loan program or through new matching grants-in-aid?

     A. An important move was made in this direction just a month ago, through congressional action for which I actively fought. Congress approved $500 million for the college housing loan program - believed to be the largest sum ever voted for higher education in any single congressional session.

     Q. Should the Federal Government offer a tax deduction to college students and their parents to help them in meeting rapidly rising tuition fees?

     A. The size of the Government's revenues over the next decade is going to be a crucial matter for the country as a whole, and rather than take the tax-deduction route of easing the financial strain on the student and his family, I would hope that other aid measures described in my foregoing answers would suffice.