Education: Cost: $14 Billion

The U.S. Office of Education had a new estimate on what it will take to bring the nation’s lagging school-building program up to the mark.

“One out of five schoolhouses now in use throughout the country should be abandoned or extensively remodeled,” said a report prepared by the office’s advisory committee of citizens. To replace obsolete classrooms, accommodate the 8,138,000 additional new pupils expected in primary and secondary schools within the next ten years and allow for other changes, the U.S. will need a minimum of 520,000 new classrooms by 1960. Estimated cost: $14,040,000,000.