THE simultaneous revelations this Fall that Radcliffe ran its first operating deficit of recent memory last year, and that the college was still continuing undaunted with its $15 million building program this year has made the fundamental distortion of Radcliffe's financial priorities painfully clear. At a time when college costs are skyrocketing, when students are clamoring to escape dormitory living, and when the growing inevitability of merger with Harvard makes independent Radcliffe development seem pointless, the Radcliffe administrators should consider more constructive uses for their money.

The ambitious $30 million fund-raising campaign that is now stretching its tentacles out to Radcliffe alumnae is at least half-right in its approach. Half of the $30 million will go to bolster the college's endowment, and the income from that half will help Radcliffe absorb part of the rising cost of educating its students without pricing itself into a millionaires-only market. The composition of Radcliffe's student body--who come from families with a median income of $30,000 and an average income of $60,000--suggests the urgency of building the endowment and boosting scholarship funds to keep the college from becoming more elitist than it is now.

But its decision to use the other half of the $30 million for grandiose building projects suggests that the college only half-realizes the urgency of clamping down on the rising cost of a Radcliffe education. Moreover, the building plans are based on anachronistic evaluations of Radcliffe's role and the desires of its students. The new $7 million Currier House will relieve over-crowding in other dorms, but allowing more students to live off-campus would do the same thing. And the plans for coffee shops and renovated dorms show the same nostalgic attachment to the concept of small-college community that is increasingly out of touch with new demands for genuine coeducation.

If Radcliffe had unlimited money to squander, its only error in building the coffee shops would be in trying to maintain a status quo that few students want maintained. But when more important fiscal needs cry ou for solution, the building plans are not merely unnecessary but disastrous.