Universities: New U. at Carnegie Tech

The future of private universities in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania increasingly hinges on the choice between a bigger piece of the public tax pie or a larger slice of Mellon. Temple University became a state-supported school last December; the University of Pittsburgh took the same course last month. The University of Pennsylvania currently draws nearly a fourth of its budget from Government-financed research and an additional 8% from direct state aid. Last week the Carnegie Institute of Technology turned to the enormous Mellon wealth. Carnegie announced that it would merge with Pittsburgh’s Mellon Institute to form a new school called Carnegie University.

Ever since its founding by Andrew W. and Richard B. Mellon in 1913, the nonprofit Mellon Institute has been conducting impressive research in chemistry, physics, biological sciences and engineering, mainly for application in private industry. It occupies an eight-story building near Carnegie Tech in Pittsburgh as well as radiation laboratories in suburban Westmoreland County, and its assets exceed $60 million.

That will give Carnegie University a value of about $200 million, including an endowment of nearly $120 million —making it one of the 15 best-endowed universities in the entire U.S. Considering the hot rivalry that now goes on between Tech and neighboring Pitt, it is ironic that until 1927 Mellon Institute was affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh.

The merger will upgrade Carnegie Tech’s graduate programs in the pure sciences and, in addition, will provide funds to fatten its undernourished humanities and liberal-arts faculties for better overall balance of the disciplines. The Institute will become a unit (the Mellon Institute of Science) within the new university, and the well known Carnegie Tech name will survive as a college of engineering and applied science in the new school. Carnegie Tech President H. Guyford Stever will head the new university under the merger, which has been approved informally by the boards of both organizations and should take effect next July.