The Scholarship Committee has received more financial aid applications for next year than it has for any other year in the College's history.

Tuition and living expenses in the College have increased 50 percent in the last ten years. But income from scholarship endowment has increased only about 17 percent since 1940.

Obviously the College is having difficulty living up to its old standards of student aid. In fact, the above factors have combined to create what the University's top officials call a major financial aid problem in the College.

"Scholarships" now holds top priority along with "Undergraduate Education" among the University's problems of long range concern. President Conant has called for as great an addition as is possible to the scholarship funds in the future. Last year the Scholarship Committee started investigating, and a series of actions began that led to the biggest step that has so far been taken in the direction of improved financial help to Harvard undergraduates; Yesterday the College Financial Aid Center opened to provide coordinated help in the form of scholarships, loans, jobs, and grants for needy students.

The "financial aid problem" is having its effect right now. The average holder of an undergraduate scholarship this year receives $47 less than last year, in spite of the fact that his basic tuition has gone up $75. And the problem promises to get much worse in a year or two. President Conant has said that student scholarships and loans are facing their most severe decline in a great many years. But such a thing is just what the University is working against.

Minimum Standards

Causes of the present need are several, but first the obvious question is "who determines whether or not a need exists?"

In this respect the University is partly causing its own financial aid "shortage" by setting the standards it has. Last Spring the Scholarship Committee decided that at least 20 percent of the undergraduates should be kept on scholarship. It is in trying to live up to this minimum standard that the Committee has had trouble. The policy of keeping at least a fifth of the students on scholarship is, then, what determines the need.

Although the 20 percent minimum may be the ultimate cause of the financial aid problem, there are other causes which make it hard for the Scholarship Committee to keep over the 20 percent line that it has drawn for itself. In 1938 the proportion of undergraduates receiving scholarship help reached 22 percent, and in 1946 it was 26 percent. But this year, in order to keep the number of scholarship holders barely over 20 percent of the student body, the average amount of the stipends had to be lowered. Obviously other factors have arison that make it impossible now for the College to keep both the number and amount of its scholarship awards up to the desired level.

Expensive Education

The main trouble is the high cost of a Harvard education. Like almost every other item on the market today, this popular commodity now costs one half again as much as it did ten years ago. Tuition was then $400. Now it is $600. In an equal ratio with tuition have risen all the travel and living expenses associated with a College career. It now costs a man $1,600 or $1,700 a year to come to Harvard from Chicago according to the Assistant to the Provost, while ten years ago the Chicago student could get by for $1,100 a year.

This inflation has had a dual effect on the scholarship situation. In the first place the Scholarship Committee's money is not as effective as it used to be. In 1940, $400 made a full tuition scholarship. Now it covers only two thirds of the tuition. To give a student the same help he would have received ten years ago, the College must grant him 50 percent more than it would have then. A given amount just does not go so far as it used to. And a Harvard scholarship is just that--a given amount.

Inflation has also made more people need scholarship help. A decade ago a family earning $10,000 could generally afford to son to Harvard. The Scholarship Committee frowned on any applicants who listed their family income as high as $5,000 to $6,000. Now some scholarship students are in a bracket twice this high and still very much in need of their stipend. The higher cost of education partially shows itself in the record number of applications turned in last month for next years awards. About 1200 undergraduates want scholarships, and 1200 applicants for the class of '54 want financial aid along with their admission to the College. Both of these numbers are greater than ever before, even though the enrollment in the College and the number of admission applications have dropped below their former peak levels.

Group IV Scholarships

Another cause of the financial aid problem is the lower requirements for scholarship eligibility. Group three used to be a rigid dividing line. Now a student in group four who distinguishes himself in some extra-curricular manner, will be seriously considered by the Scholarship Committee. By relaxing the group three rule the Committee opened the way for twice as many undergraduate applicants as it had before. This apparently is another cause of the record number of applications received last month.