U.S. engineering schools are often criticized for being behind the scientific times; their enrollments have stagnated. This week the Ford Foundation, which overlooked the field up to now, marched in with a massive $19.05 million gift to four institutes of technology (Caltech, Carnegie, Case, M.I.T.) and six universities (U.C.L.A., Michigan, Illinois, Purdue, Stanford, Wisconsin). The goal: a sharp boost for pace setters, and so for all U.S. engineering schools.
More than half the money ($11.2 million) is earmarked for improving faculties at eight of the schools; it will pay for raising key professors to senior rank, financing faculty loans and summer fellowships,...