Wilbur K. Jordan, prsident of Radcliffe, yesterday called the Annex' admissions policy a "highly selective one," aimed at building a college of gifted women," which unfortunately through prohibitive costs bring "economic discrimination."
Speaking at the 'Cliffe's formal opening of the academic year, at the First Congregation Church, Jordan added that the one out of five admissions ratio will allow the school to have graduates "who will repay the debt to society" accruing after a Radcliffe education.
Although Radcliffe "costs are lower than those of any comparable college in America . . .the fact still remains that only one-fifty of you are drawn from the lower-income brackets that constitute 90 per cent of all families in this nation," President Jordan said.
Of this one-fifth, he added, 55 per cent receive "substantial scholarships or grant-in-aid funds." The 'Cliffe President pointed out the difficulties of competing with the publicly supported colleges for the "really gifted student of limited means." He added that "We are unhappily, though unavoidably, guilty of economic discrimination."
"Freedom of experimentation" and "freedom to be excellent" are further tasks and privileges of the private college, Jordan said. "The scholar finds . . . a more congenial intellectual environment in the privately endowed university: we must see that this continues to be true, he added.
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