State Senate Approves Med. School Aid Plan

The Massachusetts State Senate has unanimously passed a controversial indirect aid program that may increase the number of New England students in the University's medical and dental schools.

The bill, passed on Monday, is expected to go before the House Ways and Means Committee today.

The plan, introduced by a special legislative commission last March, proposes a New England compact which would organize a regional medical and dental school training program. Under the compact, schools would receive from the New England states the financial difference between tuition of the New England residents accepted at the schools and the cost to the university of an expanded program.

Dean George P. Berry of the Medical School and Dean Roy O. Greep of the Dental School yesterday repeated doubts expressed last month concerning the ability of their schools to admit additional students.

But Richard Weiss, counsel to House Speaker Charles Gibbon said yesterday that the plan is almost certain of receiving House approval. At the same time Representative Nathanial Tilden, chairman of the committee which must pass on the bill, stated that hie is sympathetic with the program's general aims.

While the plan's immediate importance lies in the medical and dental fields, the program's author, State Senator George J. Evans, said last night that the proposal's jurisdiction covers the whole field of college and graduate study.

The plan calls for a New England Board of Higher Education which would integrate the study facilities in the six states so that they would be available for use in the entire area.

Evans characterized the program as an "act of self defense for New England stu- dents against Southern and Western schools which are freezing out scholars of the Northeastern region." The Board of Higher Education, he explained, would negotiate contracts with New England universities allowing for a larger number of local students to attend.

The Evans plan resulted from a two year survey made by a special Massachusetts Legislature Commission. The group's original aim was to organize a state medical school, but after study the committee felt that the Compact Program was more practical. The Senate Monday defeated a last-minute effort for a Massachusetts School of Medicine by a voice vote of 17 to 5