New Crisis in the Colleges

There are 900 private colleges and universities in the U.S. which depend on their own resources for survival. Last week most of them were shaking in their boots. One reason had been building up over the last decade: a combination of mounting costs (up 70% since 1941) and dwindling endowments. Another was a question which sprang up with the beginning of the war in Korea and struck at the heart of the college population: How many students will the colleges lose to the armed services?

President Truman's plan for deferring superior students (TIME, April 9) was no solid answer. It was still only a proposal, and already the controversial center of nationwide debate (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS). Whichever way the educators looked last week, most of them could see nothing but more trouble ahead.

The Pinch. Whatever numbers the armed services take, the loss will come at the very time when the G.I. Bill has all but run out,* and the slim years of the depression babies have already begun. Many campuses are already feeling the pinch: Stanford University reported a drop in enrollments from 9,192 in 1948 to 7,700 last fall; the University of Denver was down from 12,000 to 9,000; little Elmhurst (111.) College has gone from 750 in 1950 to 650 last fall, to 600 at the beginning of the spring term.

On such showings, the small liberal-arts colleges are tumbling into the red. By last week, at least one out of ten was reporting a deficit, and some educators estimated that as many as 200 of them might eventually close down for good. Some of the big universities are also moving into the red. Stanford expected a deficit of $250,000--its first since the '30s. Yale's expected deficit: half a million.

The educators looked earnestly for ways to batten down the hatches against the long blow. Should they accelerate courses in order to cram as many students into their programs as possible? That, said Yale's President A. Whitney Griswold, would only produce "an all-round lowering of standards and cheapening of products." Most college presidents agreed. What about outright Government subsidies? "We'd rather go around in rags," cried President V. Raymond Edman of Wheaton (111.) College--and most educators agreed with that, too.

Help from Washington. Instead, colleges and universities are begging Washington for help in other ways. Military training units are one possibility, but the prospects are strictly limited. The Pentagon is planning only a handful of new units--25 for the Army, 62 for the Air Force, none for the Navy. Research contracts from Government and industry are another hope. To cash in on it, the Board of Control for Southern Regional Education, representing 13 Southern states, has opened an office in Washington with the sole purpose of getting contracts.

In the face of drooping enrollments, many hard-pressed colleges are also wooing the high-school senior and the coed as never before. Baylor, of Waco, Texas, is sending out representatives to special high-school senior banquets, writing letters inviting seniors around for a visit. Maryland's St. John's College (Annapolis) is soon to have its first coeds; coed institutions such as Western Reserve are planning to offer more courses appealing to girls. And a few campuses are beginning a new round of tuition raises--Augustana (Ill.), Colby (Me.), Northwestern, all up 10%. Harvard is raising student room fees 15%.

The Long Haul. With increased fees go strenuous attempts to lower costs. Across the nation, president after college president has had to tell facultymen that their contracts will not be renewed next year. The case of Rollins College, which dismissed 30% of its faculty, including some senior professors (TIME, March 19), was only the most extreme. Dartmouth is cutting the faculty 5%, the University of Denver and Baylor each 20%. So far (except for Rollins), colleges are dismissing only young instructors without tenure, and a few, e.g., Beloit in Wisconsin, are canvassing nearby industries to find jobs for the men they let go.

But some educators wonder whether the cuts will not grow still deeper, disrupting faculties and driving young scholars out of the profession for good. To them the long-range threat to U.S. education is the most serious of all. Within a few years a new set of G.I.s will be storming the campus gates, along with the bumper crop of World War II babies. The great question: When that time comes, will all the small U.S. colleges now struggling for survival still be there to take them?

*So far, 50 bills to extend G.I. benefits have been introduced; only one (limited to disabled veterans) has been passed.

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