Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1959-07-20
Nv DIR. BENJAMIN FINE

North American Newspaper AlllanOe
NEW YORK, July 20-When
nearly 4 million young Amer
leans arrive in college next
September they will be hard put
to keep out of the way Of car
penters, bricklayers and clank-
ing bulldozers. The sound Of
screeching rivets, electric ham,
mers and crashing pile drivers
will vie with the professors and
students on many Staid, other
wise quiet campuses. 1t is all
part of the boom on the cam
pus.
Virtually every institution of
higher learning in the country
is expanding its campus, en-
larging its classroom facilities,
and increasing its enrolment.
An all-time record of SIS
billion in building construction
is underway now in the Ma
tons colleges and universities.
And during the next 10 years
these institutions are scheduled
to spend about ST billion a year
to build dormitories, class
rooms, faculty resident halls
and other buildings. Every ma
jor college is bursting at the
seams. Even the little known
colleges are beginning to feel
the enrolment pressure.
No other country in the
world approaches the unprece-
dented growth in student en-
The 1859 academic year,
just ended. boosted a record 3.5
million men and women in COL
leges and universities. Twenty
years ago there were not quite
is million students.
According to estimates by
officials of the United States
Office Of Education, 3,778,000
students will be on the camp.
uses of the Nation during 1852
60. a growth of more than
100000 in one year.
BY 1901 the colleges are
expected to have a total enroll
ment of 6,676.000, almost double
the present figure. This will
present a host of problems to
the institutions as we'll as to
parents and their coIlege-age
boys and girls.
771,OOO Enter This Fall
When colleges reopen in Sep
TENDER, approximately 771,000
students will enter for the first
time. But by 1870 more than
1,372,000 will seek to enroll.
Will there be room for this
vast army of young men and
women? Will the colleges and
universities be ready to take
them in, and give them an ad-
equate education? Can the COL
leges maintain high standards
in the face of rising enrollmentS
and increasing birth rates?
To find answers to these and
other pertinent questions, this
writer has just completed a
Nationwide survey of the prob
lens confronted by Americas
colleges and universities. Rep
reSentative college officials
were interviewed, reports and
studies made by the United
States Office of Education were
obtained, and data was OBJ
tanned through a QUESTIONABLE
sent to a croSS-section of the
Nations institutions of higher
learning.
AS a result OF the study,
made exclusively for the North
American Newspaper Alliance,
it can be reported that the
colleges are making every
effort to meet the expected
demands upon them. They are
straining to construct the
necessary buildings, Ito enlarge
their facilities and to keep
their standards from deterior-
ating. Some colleges have
simply given up trying to cope
with the tremendous demands
placed upon them. They refuse
to accept a larger number Of
students, on the grounds that
to do so would be an injustice
to their existing student body.
But, in the main, the colleg-
es and universities are meeting
this challenge, just as they did