Buyer's Market

When Father Robert I. Gannon became president of Fordham University, he promised "not to add a single student to the rolls," but in 13 years, Fordham's enrollment jumped from 7,300 to 14,000 Last week as he retired (TIME, Jan. 17), his successor, Father Laurence J. McGinley, said he hoped that the rise was over. "Education," said he, "has reached the point . . . where it is doing a little quiet self-analysis ..." A college might soon not have to worry about how many students it must educate, but which students it should educate, for one thing was constant--"the importance in time and in eternity of the individual student."

Would other U.S. colleges and universities also get a chance for such "quiet self-analysis," free from the pressure of too many students? At least one institution, Pittsburgh's Carnegie Institute of Technology, thought so. In the last year, reported Chairman of Admissions John M. Daniels, Carnegie's enrollment applications had dropped 40%. Said he: "It is a 'buyer's market from now on, and those colleges which insist on top-ranking students are going to have to go out and compete for them as we did in prewar years . . . The honeymoon is over."

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