THE PRESS

The Boston Evening Transcript published early in November a survey of New England colleges and universities which showed that the number of students is approximately the same as last year. A wide survey previously given out by the Associated Press told the same story. Such figures do not afford a precise index of the situation, in view of the fact that in many institutions' there is now a fixed limitation of numbers and a selective method of admission. An accurate statement would give the numbers of applicants for admission as well as the numbers in attendance. It might also be objected that account should be taken of the rate of increase during recent years. But before 1920 there was already evidence that the rapid increase which followed the War had run its course and that numbers had become stabilized. In any case, broadly speaking, it would appear that hard times have not appreciably affected the total resort to American colleges.

There are, of course, two factors at work. One is the reduced income of parents and self-supporting students. The New England survey shows that the public institutions, where costs are at a minimum, have gained slightly at the expenses of privately endowed institutions. And everywhere the student of small means is hard-pressed. But the effect of this factor is on the whole neutralized by the difficulty of obtaining permanent employment. In the old days it frequently happened that periods of depression led, despite expectations to the contrary, to increased enrollment, and the cynically-minded were went to remark that going to college was itself after all, only a form of unemployment. It would now be expressed otherwise, to the effect, namely, that going to college is deemed the most profitable form of unremunerative employment. It is a way of improving the plant against the time when it can be put to use. It would appear, then, that these two factors, reduction of income and reduction of employment, offset one another, so that the number of students is unaffected by the total economic situation.

Commenting on this fact; the New York Herald Tribune has recently sounded again the ancient warning against an over-production of the highly educated. But the force of such a warning depends on the answers to two prior questions. First, in times of depression do the highly educated suffer from less of income and security more or less than the lowly educated? Second, how highly educated are the "highly educated?" Harvard Alumni Bulletin