THE CURRENT DRAFT registration drive was from the start an empty symbolic response to Soviet expansionism. It has since proved unenforceable, not because of organized resistance among the nation's youth, but because thousands simply have not bothered to participate out of indifference. Faced with the impossible task of chasing down more than 700,000 delinquents (thegovernment's estimate), the Justice Department has turned to Congress for help. The result many not only involve constructing vast new bureaucracies but also entangling colleges in a mission lacking common sense and legitimate political purpose.

With compliance rates dropping sharply in recent months, according to a General Accounting Office report, the number of illegal non-registrants has grown to a figure 20 times larger than the entire population of the nation's federal prison system. U.S. attornies have no choice but to take their time with prosecutions-a whopping total of four are now underway-while hoping for a miracle.

Congress' answer is to link federal student aid to cooperation with registration. The House of Representatives last week passed legislation prohibiting students who have failed to check in with Selective Service from receiving any from of government-subsidized loan or grant for tuition. The measure, attached to a mammoth $177.1 billion dollar military authorization bill, closely resembles language approved earlier by the Senate. If minor differences are worked out by a conference committee this month, the law could go into effect by the 1983-84 academic term.

Advocates of the amendment, led by House sponsor Gerald Solomon (R-N.Y.), argue that Congress should not support criminals. Viewed simplistically, the logic holds; non-registration is, after all, a felony carrying a maximum sentence of five years in jail combined with a $10,000 fine. But as with the legal prosecution program whose bill would total hundreds of millions of dollars if it were actually executed, the Solomon scheme raises a significant question: is registration enforcement worth the price?

Reasonable legislators, along with schools such as Harvard, have already pointed out that entire new staffs would have to be created on campus and in Washington to correlate student aid rolls with lists of non-registrants. No central file exists with the names of all the people benefitting from the gargantuan tuition support network, and it remains unclear what precise role Congress envisions for the schools, which administer the loans and grants to middle and lower-class students. The Department of Education could asks the Harvard administration of turn over a list of all men currently enrolled and receiving aid, or the government could demand more.

One conceivable strategy would be to order schools not to administer aid to any student included in a main file of registration evaders. That would probably save the Education Department time any money. But it would also make hatchetmen of the nation's colleges, creating animosity between Washington and academic at a time when the two must work together more than over to insulate higher education from financial hardship. The echoes of the 1960s would become a roar once again, as students were given a vivid reminder of how universities can be sucked into complicity with misguided government policy.

On a more practical level, the Congressional initiative effectively discriminates against poor students. Rep. Ronald Dellums (D-Cal,) and others have argued that the amendment would allow wealthy undergraduates who could attend college without federal assistance to continue to ingore draft registration, while poor students would either have to start signing up or lose their financial aid. Though characteristically cautious, Harvard's General Counsel Daniel Steiner '54 said last week. "It is a mistake to link distinct needs with social responsibility."

THERE IS A REASON why registration enforcement has becomes such a mess, and why so many young men have not considered it their social responsibility to fill out a Selective Service card in their local post office. The sign-up itself is pointless.

Jimmy Carter reinstituted a peacetime registration in 1980 in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Most military man-power experts would agree that the United States is not better prepared to fight any kind of war as a result. A draft would still take months to mount while the standing army would do any initial fighting. Soviet tanks, by the way, are still parked on the streets of downtown Kabul.

No reason, other than a vague threat of punishment, compels people to register, so many of them don't. Seven percent of the 8.4 million eligible young men have reacted negatively--for the most part, in a passive fashion--to a program whose only discernible effect is to propagate a Cold War-style, saber-jangling approach toward relations with Moscow.

President Reagan not so long ago voiced this realization. As a candidate for the White House, he called registration insignificant in terms of national security and even "immoral" for symbolically infringing on people's privacy. Once in office, however, he went back on his promise to eliminate the program because he feared ruffling the feathers of hawks on Capitol Hill and appearing soft in any way in the eyes of leaders in Western Europe.

Now, the President has a choice: end registration and call off the futile hunt for non-complaints, or continue along a path destined to end in confusion, inequity and resentment. It's too bad he didn't follow up on his own vow and kill the problem cleanly as soon as he took office.