Although times seemed ripe for far-reaching initiatives to safeguard the quality of engineering education, current political noise about the issue threatens to drown out the engineering community's message. However, the engineering community's theme should be that economic growth in a modern economy, that industrial policy, is based first and foremost on people, including a cadre of scientists/engineers trained to high standards of technical excellence; and such a cadre will not endure unless engineering schools are healthy. Renewed support for action is available, but the question is whether the engineering community will make its clarion calls heard and will receive an adequate share of the new funds becoming available. The question of industrial policy at federal and state levels needs to be considered, particularly in states where new paradigms linking industry and the academic science and engineering communities in the service of economic growth based on new technology are being created. This can be illustrated by recommendations of the New Jersey Governor's Commission on Science and Technology. Two related issues where industry and engineering schools share responsibility should also be considered, namely, concern aroused by the failure to match engineering supply/demand and the success in using computing technologies to boost engineering productivity. (JN)