Why Not Defer the Bright Boys
A S THIS article is written, we have heard, for the first time, official announcement of a public policy concerning the deferment of college students. The formula for such deferment seems to be equitable and democratic. It is based upon the two criteria of achievement of a minimum score on a nation-wide examination and individual ranking within the student's own class and within his own college or university. It is the Armed Services' own policy, since it comes as an executive orcder, following a joint recommendation of the Director of Selective Service and the Secretary of Defense. The announcement of this very liberal policy of collegiate deferment has climaxed more than two years of study, hearings, research, investigation, and proposals. The policy contains within itself at least the seeds of the Trytten Committee proposals, and in form and principle it is acceptable to most educators and to most educational societies and associations. It will, it seems, allow us to recast our enrollment estimates for the fall of i95i in a far less pessimistic manner. Many of the large state institutions are anticipating that this policy, plus an expanded R.O.T.C. program, plus the veteran and non-eligible group, will keep their enrollment loss in the fall of 195I to 5 per cent, or less, of the I950 figure. Many of the smaller private institutions are anticipating that they may be able to keep their doors open through these next two years! By that time, all schools hope, the normal pressures for admission will have reasserted themselves, and enrollments should level off and become constant again. This hope is based on the assumption that peace, even the present uneasy variety, continues, and that the attitudes of our young, college-age men do not vary. We have every reason to think that they will not, since our experience with veterans from I944 through I950 would lead us to believe that men leave the service with increased determination to secure an education. Another factor affecting this trend is the possibility of new legislation to aid veterans in reaching their educational objectives. The Congress is now considering a bill which would extend certain benefits, including educational benefits similar in scope to Title II of Public Law 346, to all men serving in our armed forces for go days or more after June I7, I950. The passage of such legislation as this might well mean that the colleges would face, in the fall of 1953, the same kind of deluge, on a smaller scale to be sure, which broke on them in the fall of I945. The possibility is, at any rate, real