In this way, the departments would be prevented from taking further advantage of the program to increase their scholarship funds. They would also be required to find some way to allocate the existing total of funds to make up for the reduction in the outside aid received by teaching fellows.

ABOUT 200 GRADUATE students attended a meeting with Jones which took place five days after Jones sent out the letter announcing the decision. Many of them angrily attacked the abolition of the STS program as a cut in pay for teaching fellows.

Jones agreed several times that the scholarships should be viewed as part of teaching fellows' salaries, but stressed that there had been no reduction in the funds available for scholarships for teaching fellows.

"If the system works well, there should not be a salary cut," he said.

A salary cut was inevitable, however. Even if all $800,000 from the STS program were distributed to teaching fellows, this amount would not have been enough to cover all the demands for aid from this group, given the loss of outside aid to some teaching fellows.

Students at the meeting were concerned with a different problem. Many of them doubted that teaching fellows would receive the full amount that had been allotted to them this year through the STS program.

Some graduate students said that their departments were receiving less money for teaching fellows' scholarships next year than teaching fellows in those departments had received this year and others predicted that their departments would use the money to support incoming students.

Most of those who spoke expressed a deep distrust of the arrangements that had been worked out to replace the STS program. "All we know is that you're taking money away from teaching fellows and that we may or may not be getting it back," one student said.

SEVERAL STUDENTS also criticized Jones angrily during the meeting for his failure to consult the graduate students before the decision was made to abolish the STS program.

His explanation was that there had been a "time problem." But he has also noted that it was difficult to find a representative group from the graduate student body to consult.

Last week he noted that the Graduate Student Association had called a meeting in December to discuss financial aid policies, in the light of reports that a major change was being considered. "I think that something like three students showed up at that meeting," he said.

But at the March meeting, one student stated that he belonged to a committee, chaired by Jones, which had been set up to discuss Graduate School problems. Jones had never called a meeting of the committee, he said.

At the end of the meeting with Jones, 156 of the 200 students present remained behind and voted to form a union. Two days later, at another meeting, 435 students ratified the formation of the union and passed the demands for recognition, retention of the STS program, cancellation of the third-year tuition increase, and full disclosure of the University's operating budget.

In demanding the retention of the STS program, the students specified that maintenance of teaching fellows' "real income" not come at the expense of other graduate student aid, undergraduate scholarships, the pay of non-academic personnel at Harvard, or through increased teaching loads.

THE DEMAND for full disclosure of the University's budget was designed to guarantee that this stipulation is observed and also to generate debate over Harvard's spending priorities.