N. Y. State Regents Propose 3-Year High School Program

Sixteen year old freshmen may be common in the College if plans of the New York State Board of Regents are adopted.

The Regents recommended Thursday that New York State high schools work overtime to turn out their students in three years. The students then could reach college early and get in at least a year before being drafted into any universal military service program.

A year of college education prior to military service, the Regents said, would result in a "gain in maturity of judgment, which is most important both for the young people involved and for the total welfare of this nation."

Dean Bender said yesterday that because of great service manpower needs educators must find some way to condense the American educational process into a shorter time period. "Somewhere in the whole process, from pre-school through college, we must save some time. The question of how to do this should be studied with interest," he said.

Acceleration is to be accomplished by having students attend summer school and take extra courses, according to the Regents' report. The program would not be put into effect until a universal military service program of some kind were passed by Congress.

William Yandell Elliott, Lerey Williams Professor of Government and Director of the Summer School, said last night he had not as yet mapped definite plans for revising summer school plans to accommodate an accelerated program.

He remarked, however, that a continued manpower shortage might put the college back on the three term schedule it maintained during World War II when acceleration was a common practice in going through College.

The School of Education is reported to have fairly complete acceleration plans.