Some years, Harvard has a deficit. Other years it has a surplus. But either way, tuition, room and board go up.

Robert E. Kaufmann '62, assistant dean of the Faculty for financial affairs, was the man with the bad news this year. Kaufman predicted on Wednesday that tuition will go up about $200, to $3400 for the 1974-75 school year, while room and board fees are slated to go up an extra hundred dollars. This year, room and board was $1825.

Kaufmann explained that Harvard faces an estimated $1 million deficit in its 1973-74 budget. Last January, when John T. Dunlop, then dean of the Faculty, announced a $280 increase in tuition, room and board, his office explained that Harvard faced an estimated $1 million deficit in its 1972-73 budget. Despite Dunlop's dire prediction, Harvard finished the school year with a $2.1 million surplus.

According to the administration officials, that unexpected surplus was primarily the result of unpredictable windfalls from private donors, as well as a 5.7 per cent increase in government grants after the university predicted a 2.4 cent decline.

But tuition hikes are the result of inflation throughout the whole economy, Kaufmann insisted, and don't keep increases in Harvard's income abreast of the economy as a whole. In an effort to hold the line, Dean Rosovsky called on department chairmen not to spend any more next year than they did this year.

Harvard men are holding the line at both national and university levels. But even with Dunlop looking out for wage increases at the Cost of Living Council in Washington and Rosovsky doing the same thing in University Hall, it just keeps on getting harder to make ends meet.