Mecca

By all the signs, the U.S. was now the educational mecca of the world:

P: Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, leader of India's new interim Government, wanted more of his countrymen--who used to go mainly to Britain for education--to look to the U.S. As he spoke, there were 300 Indians on the high seas, heading for U.S. universities; 300 others had already enrolled.

P: 80% of Scandinavia's foreign-bound students planned to come to the U.S. (550 of them this fall). Before the war, 50% went to Germany.

P: China reported a waiting list of 4,000 students--double the usual yearly quota --whose passports were stamped and ready whenever the U.S. was.

The sad state of Europe's devastated universities partly explained the shift from previous world centers--Germany, France and England. So, too, did the fact that for war-weary European youths the U.S. looked like the best place to get away from it all. But U.S. technological strides, especially in engineering and medicine, were the biggest lure.

There was one serious hitch: U.S. colleges were already bulging with their own students. Of the 50,000 foreign students banging on U.S. consulate doors, not one in ten will get in.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.