DRAFTING COLLEGE STUDENTS

The Korean War in the early 1950s resulted in an active draft of college-age males. In January 1951 Secretary of Defense George C. Marshall announced that male college students could finish their academic year, but then they had to enlist in the military branch of their choice or risk the draft. There was a 50 percent drop in spring-semester enrollments, due to panic enlistments by students who wanted to choose for themselves which branch of the military to enter.

Two months later, in March 1951, President Harry S Truman approved deferment of college students of superior scholastic standing or those who achieved high scores on national aptitude tests. In October 1951 it was reported that 37 percent of the 339,056 college students who took the aptitude tests, given on four different dates earlier in the year, had passed, earning deferment. Some local boards complained that college deferments made it difficult for them to meet quotas.

In the South more college-age men escaped the draft because of illiteracy than scholastic potential. Draft boards in five southern states had the highest rejection rates in the nation of men educationally unfit to serve in the military: in South Carolina 58 percent of all persons aged twenty-five to thirty-five tested functionally illiterate, in Louisiana 48 percent; in Mississippi 45 percent; in Alabama 43 percent; and in Georgia, 36 percent.

After the war a debate began about educational benefits for the veterans. World War II veterans received eductional benefits under the Serviceman's Readjustment Act of 1944 (better known as the G.I. Bill of Rights). That act provided monthly allowances for books and living expenses as well as up to $500 paid directly to colleges for tuition. The Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act of 1952 provided Korean War veterans with $110-$ 160 monthly, but they had to pay their own tuition and expenses. The Association of American Colleges worked in 1954 for the equalization of benefits for all veterans, arguing that Korean veterans were not being treated fairly, but Congress was unsympathetic.