The following figures regarding the relation between tuition fees and the annual cost of education at the University show what a small part of the cost the average student has to pay, and to what a large extent the work of a university is supported by the generosity of givers, living and dead.

In 1919-20 the money collected in tuition fees covered only about 27 percent of the total expenditure of the University.

It is roughly estimated that instruction in Harvard College and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences costs on the average over $600 per man not including the expenses of the College Library, which costs about $40 a year to run per student in the College and the Graduate School, but is nevertheless available to all students free of charge. The tuition is just being raised from $200 to $250, and even at the latter figure the student will, therefore, be getting his education at somewhere between one-third and one-half of its cost.

In the Medical School the tuition fee is to be pushed up from $225 to $300, while according to rough estimates instruction costs about $900 per man.

In the Law School, instruction is much less costly, as men can be taught in comparatively large groups and there are no expensive laboratories to keep up. Last year, however, the tuition fees, at $150, covered only about three-quarters of the expense of running the School.

In the Business School the $400 tuition fee, which is effective next year, covers the cost of instruction minus the income from the school's small endowment. But even here no charge will be made for permanent improvements the full benefit of which is not secured by men now in the school or now entering it; nor is any charge made for the use of physical equipment -- land, buildings, athletic grounds etc.--furnished by the University.

In other departments of the University the cost of instruction is, generally speaking, still larger in proportion to the tuition paid, men in some departments paying only one-fifth or less of what it costs to teach them.