Dean Monro's Plan

Dean Monro's recent proposal that universities join in setting up a project for recruiting gifted students with little educational opportunity makes a good deal of sense. As he says, the present admissions system is wasteful and insensitive, and, although no miracle will be wrought by Monro's plan, it shows an understanding of the fact that a truly democratic scholarship program will have to help motivate students as well as hand them checks after they've been accepted.

Searching for the ultimate social cause of any college admissions problem would be a little like trying to solve the matter of friction rather than grease a rusty wheel. The ultimate social question in the case of scholarship students from poor or minority group families is that of motivation, how to break out of the vicious circle set up by the fact that people draw their values and dreams from the atmosphere in which they grow up. Last year, Monro expressed the kind of bind that admissions officers often get into: "You break your back getting some tough little kid from the slums to come here, you give him a full scholarship, and then he leaves in the middle of his freshman year because he just can't take it. He's unhappy, we're unhappy. You ask yourself, 'Did you do this for him or for yourself?' You just don't know."

While the ultimate social questions lie begging, however, there is an admissions office to be run, and steps--like Monro's plan--leading in some direction that seems to be forward. His idea that any major project should be carried out by universities in their local areas is sound; something like the National Scholarship Service and Fund for Negro Students' project at Junior High School 43 in Harlem should be the rough model for what the universities can do with local schools. The idea is to introduce promising poor kids to higher learning, give them some kind of motivation, and then provide a chance for them to go to a college.

Monro will spell out his proposals to other universities at the meeting of the College Scholarship Services on Oct. 25. Hopefully a talent-hunting organization similar in scope to the National Science Foundation, but working closely with local schools, will result. Spreading admissions nets as wide and as deep as possible is unquestionably good; but unquestionably the colleges will have to come around--as Monro's plan does--to the business of reaching people and helping them want to come to college.