The College Boys Learn

For the first time last week, a million U.S. college men got a fairly clear idea of what to expect from the draft. By executive order, President Truman amended the nation's outdated draft regulations, set up a new system to give the country's more promising students a chance to finish up their studies.

There will be no automatic mass deferments : each student will have to prove to the Selective Service System that his education is necessary "to the national health, safety, and interest." Under the new regulations, deferments will be granted to:

P: All men in graduate and professional schools (i.e., candidates for degrees in liberal arts as well as students in medicine, dentistry, optometry, law, etc.) who stick to their courses and keep up their grades.

P: All undergraduates who stand well up in their class rankings. Probably to be deferred: freshmen in the upper half of their classes, sophomores, juniors, and seniors in the upper third or quarter.

P: Students in college R.O.T.C. detachments who sign up for the full four-year training program and intend to take commissions on graduation.

P: Any undergraduate, no matter how high or low he stands in his class, who wants to take a special aptitude test to be given in 1,000 centers throughout the U.S. this spring and qualifies as a superior student. The tests will be open to all fulltime, non-veteran college students under the age of 26. Though the passing grade will be moved up or down according to the nation's manpower needs, a student once flunked will get no second chance.

While the new law will keep several hundred thousand students out of uniform for a few years, all are liable to service after graduation.

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