U.S. College in Paris

For Americans, going to college in Paris has traditionally assayed high in romance (a garret out of La Boheme, professorial brilliance in a drafty Sorbonne classroom) and low on education (the French was hard to follow, the credits usually nontransferable). Last week, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, a school opened to provide both Parisian culture and American credits.

How to get such an education is the annual problem of some 4,000 college-ready children of Americans living in France or neighboring countries. Going home is costly and involves long family separation. The obvious need is an American college, and two years ago a Paris-based State Department official named Lloyd A. DeLamater quit his job and set about launching one.

DeLamater, who holds a Ph.D. in economics from the Sorbonne, got advice from such experts as Frank Bowles, president of the College Entrance Examination Board. With himself as dean, he rounded up such trustees as Director Ian F. Eraser of the American Library in Paris. For a campus, the American Church in Paris contributed its neo-Gothic Activities Building on the Seine-side Quai d'Orsay.

Coed and nonsectarian, American College in Paris is a two-year liberal arts school that requires college board aptitude exams for entrance, takes only students who aim for later transfer to first-class

U.S. campuses. Apart from a few foreigners, the first 100 students are all the children of Americans stationed everywhere from France, Germany and Spain to Iceland, Malaya and Viet Nam.

Dean DeLamater is starting on a shoestring budget of $57,000, derived entirely from student fees of only $570 a year. What makes this possible is his big hidden asset: the 300 or more U.S. professors who descend on Paris each year for research and sabbaticals. They can be had for part-time teaching at such modest fees that American College is opening with 15 seasoned scholars, including Dartmouth Sociologist George Theriault, Holyoke Government Professor Claire Doubrovsky and Cornell's African expert, Political Scientist Elizabeth Landis.

Having no dormitories of their own. DeLamater's students live at home, with French families or in international student dormitories for about $14 a month. They can eat at Left Bank student restaurants for 25-c- a meal. Apart from books and clothes, they can live and learn for as little as $1,100 a year.

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