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No Draft Registraticn,N0 Benefits For Education

Click to see original imageShould a student who refused compliance with the draft registration be allowed federal funds to assist with his education? The Daily Herald doesn’t think so and supports Sen. S.l. Hayakawa, R-Calif., Secretary of Education T.H. Bell and others now seeking to withhold federal education aid from any eligible student refusing to register. Selective Service recently reported a 93-percent national compliance rate in the draft signup. The agency has begun a computer search to find the non-registrants. Meantime, anti-draft protest groups have vowed to fight a federal crackdown on registration evaders. The peacetime registration was revived by Congress during the Carter Administration in the face of ominous global conditions after the Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan. No drafting is being done now. This would require a separate act of Congress. Sen. Hayakawa attached an amendment to a Senatecleared defense bill that would deny federal student loans and work-study funds to young men who don’t sign for the draft. Secretary Bell favors the same principle and says he hopes the proposal will hold in the House-Senate conference after the House passes its companion defense authorization bill. Bell also is developing a similar measure as a proposed attachment to the higher education bill pending before the House. His idea is to make nonregistrant students ineligible for any type of federal educational assistance unless they attach their Selective Service numbers to their aid applications. Under Hayakawa’s amendment, Cosponsored by a number of senators, applicants for federal education aid would have 30 days to provide “proof of compliance.” Today the armed forces manpower needs are adequately handled by the voluntary enrollment program. Signups are going especially well during the current civilian job pinch. But wisdom dictates that the government have a fund of names to which it can turn when national security is threatened. The peacetime draft registration provides that type of roster. When an eligible student refuses to respond to this call by his country,he should look elsewhere for educational funds and not ask these from the govemment he declines to support. That should be elementary, and Congress should waste no time okaying rules to enforce it.