While President Bok was in New York this week soliciting corporate support for graduate research, the Committee on Fellowships and Other Aids at the Graduate School met to decide how to distribute the money they have for the upcoming year.

Bok told the Committee for Corporate Support of American Universities that corporations had a stake in graduate research since research in the scientific fields has a direct bearing on scientific advances in the business world.

Bok said that the need for corporate support of the universities is a result of an unwillingness on the part of the Federal government to continue funding for research.

Federal funding for graduate research has declined 10 per cent and Federally-funded fellowships have dropped 40 per cent nation-wide over the last five years, Bok said.

The grim financial picture is responsible for the confusion facing the GSAS committee as it tries, for the third time in three years, to mold a coherent plan for distribution of financial aid.

At a meeting on Tuesday--the latest in a series of meetings that began early this Fall--the committee drew up some rough guidelines for the financial aid plan they intend to present to the Faculty Council before December.

The new plan will draw heavily on "the lessons of the Kraus plan," Peter S. McKinney, administrative dean of the GSAS, said last week. The controversial Kraus Plan used last year introduced a need-based analysis into the predominately merit-oriented system of awarding scholarships to graduate students.

McKinney said Thursday that the committee had been trying to settle basic questions about a new financial aid plan before meeting with the Committee on Graduate Education later this month.

He said that the committee had "more or less decided, but not voted" that the plan be need-based, and that GSAS departments retain autonomy in their choices for distribution of aid.

McKinney said the committee had determined:

*That a floor on the level of support be decided for every student;

* That a need-based plan is necessary; and

* That individual departments be given autonomy in distributing aid.