The news that outside funding to the University dropped by nearly $4.5 million in the past fiscal year highlights one of the major pressures now facing Harvard financial planners who are relying now more than ever on outside sources of funding to meet the University's financial needs.

Harvard now plans, as Dr. Chase N. Peterson '52, vice president for alumni affairs and development, said on Thursday, to "get off the plateau" and significantly increase outside resources as a source of funding to Harvard.

This plan, as last year's funding results show, is highly susceptible to the fluctuations of the national economy.

Indeed, the 8-per-cent decline in gifts from alumni, foundations, corporations, and government is largely due to the general economic recession which depressed the 1974 stock market and depleted the assets of nearly all these major sources of funding to Harvard.

Coupled with the news that Harvard received less, were figures released yesterday showing that corporate support to the nation's universities dropped 3.7 per cent from $2.224 billion in the fiscal year 1973-74 to $2.167 billion in the past fiscal year.

A spokesman for the Council for Financial Aid to Education, the group which released the corporate giving figures, said yesterday that belt-tightening measures forced American corporations to cut back on nearly all philanthropic activities.

The decrease in corporate support to universities comes after nearly a decade of steadily increasing donations to education from corporations and represents a sizeable setback to the many schools that rely on corporate support to meet fiscal needs.

That Harvard retained its position as the recipient of more outside funding than any of the nation's other universities is due in large part to the efforts of the Development Office which has beefed up its staff in the past year and persisted in finding new resources of outside funding to the University.

Henry F. Colt '46, director of university development, predicted yesterday that Harvard would reverse last year's trend, increasing its outside funding by about $5 million to the levels of two years ago.

The ominous note was struck by Schuyler Hollingsworth '40, recording secretary to the University, who said last week that "unless we can significantly increase outside giving to Harvard, tuitions and financial pressures on undergraduates will definitely rise."