Fees may be only one of many barriers to Harvard, but they are a very real barrier. Harvard claims that 50 per cent of the students receive aid. What does this mean when of the bottom fiscal half of the Harvard class 19 per cent are above $15,000, about 40 per cent are above $10,000? The vast majority of Harvard's bottom half, the half that receives aid, is in the nation's upper half.

The previously quoted Times article stated, "Although there has been an 'almost fantastic increase' in financial aid resources during the last ten years, no significant gains were made in lowering the economic barrier to a Harvard education."

The mean income of students on scholarships according to the Financial Aid Office is $9,200, 23 per cent above the national mean. Labaree's study concluded.

Therefore, to state that an increasing percentage of Harvard undergraduates is receiving gradually larger scholarship stipends is not by any means t imply that as a result the student body is becoming more heterogeneous from a class point of view.

The trend is the other way. Bender said in 1961, "We now have a much larger proportion of middle and upper-middle income candidates but have lost ground relatively, and probably absolutely, among the really low income families."

The President's Reports for '61-62 to '65-65 show the basic fees have risen faster than the average stipend size and thus the proportion of the bill paid by scholarships has gone down, not up. since then fees have risen 25 per cent and total aid, including loans, rose 84 per cent, but the trends are about the same.

As a sidelight it is important to remember that the country's lower economic half includes a large majority of blacks. so the economic barrier takes on racial undertones. And despite "backbreaking efforts to get Negroes," Newsweek (April 22) listed Harvard as getting fewer entering blacks next year than fourteen other selected colleges, including Yale and Princeton. Harvard had ten more blacks than the black percentage was 4.6, the lowest whole it is 3.6 per cent. The Dean of Admissions replied that when Harvard accepts blacks, the blacks come. So in fact, they get more than other Ivy League schools. But 3.6 per cent is still very small.

What Does It Mean?

What does all this mean? Is Harvard responsible? Is al this so partly because of Harvard's policies, conscious or unconscious? We have to start by looking at Harvard's admission process.

Alumni sons and prep school graduates receive a decided preference. Before explaining why it's a "preference" and not just an "advantage" let's take a look at that group.

Twenty per cent of every class are alumni sons. Bender commented that prep schools. Bender commented that this reflected the belief that "in this too rootless world inheritance and nurture mean money." Yet inheri- tance and nurture mean more than money. A qualified applicant doesn't come out of a wallet. A good family, cultural background and an excellent education mean a great deal beyond academic credentials.

What exactly does a prep school education mean in terms of activities and performance at Harvard? To compare preppies and pubbies (public school graduates) we can use the exhaustive data of the Harvard Student Body Center. The data is slightly misleading because "elite" public schools such as Newton High are thrown in with the other public schools. Boston area public schools like Newton receive the same preferential treatment as prep schools. This tends to reduce the statistical gap between pubbies and preppies.

According to the Harvard Student Study Center's survey pubbies study significantly more the first year, though this difference lessens through the years. There is almost no difference between the two groups in time spent on extracurricular activities. Whereas pubbies major primarily in Physical Sciences, preppies are almost exclusively in Humanities.

Harvard states it Judges academic ability mainly on two criteria, CEEB board scores and the school record. Fifty per cent of Harvard sons score below 650 on the verbal SAT as compared to 18 per cent of the others. Forty-six per cent of the preppies scored below 650 while only 12 per cent of the others did. In Loewen's Sample 61 per cent of the alumni sons fell below Group 3 compared with 32 per cent of the others. For preppies the trend was weaker but still obvious. Nineteen pre cent were Group 2 as compared with 20 per cent of the others 41 per cent fell below Group 3 as opposed to 34 per cent of the others.

The Harvard Student Study Center shows that 34 per cent of the pubbies were first in their high school class, 73 per cent in the top five. And many public school classes are very large, some running into the thousands. A large majority of preppies were not in the top 20 per cent of their classes (not counting Andover and Exeter because they send about 50 students each and their data would be meaningless to this statistic).