Mass. Education

The increased demand for State education in Massachusetts shows no signs of dropping off now that demobilization has been reduced to a trickle, and if Devens College, instituted as a post-war emergency, is liquidated, the supply of State education will be no larger than in prewar times. Veterans taking Devens' two-year course, having been assured that the State will take care of them for four years, soon will be left shivering on an academic doorstep with half a college education and a half-used G.I. Bill of Rights.

As an emergency measure it was necessary to turn an Army camp into a college composed largely of engineering students, despite the complete lack of laboratories and equipment. But building Devens College permanently into a four-year institution would not be practical; an engineering plant for third- and fourth-year students would soon be idle and obsolete, or Massachusetts would be supporting a poor duplicate of the Massachusetts State College at Amherst. The alternative is to expand M.S.C. into a college that will be able to handle the large future demand for State education. Not only would long-run costs be smaller, but the last two years of college could be given more effectively at an established institution.

As President Conant pointed out early this month, money invested at Amherst need not be invested as an emergency measure, but in a long-range program. For many years it has been clear that the State College is inadequate. Legislators who doubt that expansion will be necessary in the long run, once the State returns to normalcy, need only be shown the number turned away from M.S.C. in the last ten years. Besides, there will be no return to the prewar educational flow in and out of colleges. Soon the veterans' kid brothers will be wanting to go to college, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, at the present time prepared to do away with its emergency measures, must meet its future responsibilities by expanding its retarded facilities for State education.