Confusion Confounded

If there ever was value in the student deferment test plan, it was the slight measure of certainty it afforded both students and local draft boards. The draft test has never been a positive basis for deferment. But though yearly grades must be considered as well as a high score on the test, and though the final decisions lie with the local boards, the test results have at least served as a standard on which students could plan the amount of time they could spend working, and on which draft boards could base their decisions.

Major General Hershey has now deprived the test sys of its one meagre function. By indicating that he will raise or lower the passing grade depending on the needs of the armed forces, Hershey has reduced the draft problem to its status before the tests were administered: confusion.

Presumably three is some reason for the proposed hike in passing grade. just as presumably there was some reason for setting the passing score at 70 last year. If the score were set as a matter of arbitrary convenience. Selective Service could have no excuse whatsoever for the raise. But it as Hershey has hinted, the deferment score is merely a relative standard which can be moved up and down according to the exigencies of the Armed Forces and local boards, the students have a a right to be told.

Hershey has taken away what little certainty he had held out to students. If he is going to dispense with a definite passing score on the deferment test, it is at least up to him to give college students some basis for knowing just how much time they have left to their studies.