Yale College will increase the amount of financial aid it offers to some prospective members of the class of 1977, Yale Provost Richard Cooper announced Wednesday.

The additional gifts will allow Yale to compete with other colleges, notably Harvard, in attracting especially desirable but needy applicants, Worth David. Yale dean of Admissions, said yesterday. For the past two years, Yale has been offering incoming freshmen lower monetary gifts than other Ivy League colleges, he said.

The result has been that some students have decided against attending Yale for financial reasons alone, David said.

Each Spring, after admissions committees have made their decisions, representatives from the Ivy League gather at "overlap meetings" to discuss candidates accepted at more than one of the schools. The colleges try to agree on the total amount of aid each applicant needs, L. Fred Jewett '57, dean of Admissions and Financial Aid, said yesterday.

Self-help'

Each college then offers a different proportion of outright gifts and "self-help"--income from guaranteed jobs and loans--to total what they have agreed is an applicant's need. The proportion is based on the amount of scholarship money available at each school, Jewett said.

This year Yale will offer extra money to some applicants so that their decisions can be based minimally on different financial offers, David said.

Yale's basic self-help requirement will be $1900 this year, David said. Jewett said that Harvard's figure of $1200 is more favorable to the student than Yale's.