Too Many Scholars

The nation's colleges, whose pillared front porches are already groaning under the weight of students trying to get in, haven't seen anything yet. This week Reconversion Director John W. Snyder predicted that some 2,080,000 young men & women will want to get in next fall--and there will be room for only 1,600,000. Among the 480,000 turned away will be 270,000 veterans. The U.S. college population, which increased 600% from 1900 to Pearl Harbor, is now about to double--and will stay that way.

What to do about it? In a 13,500-word report to President Truman, Snyder urged some quick action first, some long thinking later. Quick steps:

P: Lease unused Army & Navy camps and defense installations to colleges for housing.

P: Set up central clearing houses in each state to match schools and students, funnel part of the overflow into junior and teachers' colleges.

P: Round up (through the Department of Labor) some of the 8,000 qualified teachers who wandered off to better-paying jobs.

P: Produce 2,400,000 more textbooks this year; make it easier for colleges to pick up surplus war equipment which businessmen are grabbing first.

P: Get more state money to add to the $1 billion the U.S. will spend on education.

In the long run, says Snyder, U.S. colleges must decide where to stop in handing out college educations. "We cannot afford the mistake ... of training too many for the professions and too few for other . . . functions in the economy. . . . We should thus give close attention ... to the possibility of developing a new intermediate group of technical institutes." Shorter than the four-year standard colleges, they would offer certificates instead of A.B.s and B.S.s.

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