The Yale faculty voted last month to cancel its 1979 summer term because of financial problems.

Ruth Claus, director of Yale's office of Summer Term Planning, said yesterday that the university might still be able to conduct a scaled-down summer program after this year. "This doesn't mean that Yale is going out of business for the summer term," she said.

The present Yale summer program, unlike those at other universities such as Harvard, is an integral part of the Yale curriculum, with full courses taught by regular faculty. Students may attend the term on an optional basis.

Claus said several faculty committees will now consider alternatives to the summer program, but did not specify what options they would consider.

"Nobody ever suggested that the Yale summer term was not a good program academically. The reasons for the negative faculty vote were primarily financial," Claus added.

Attendance at Yale's summer session had declined for the past three years. Officials cited the high cost of tuition and declining student interest as reasons for falling profits.

Unlike Harvard's Summer School, the Yale summer term has not attracted a large number of outside students interested in taking basic and required preprofessional courses like organic chemistry, Michael Shinagel, director of the Harvard Summer School, said yesterday.

Yale summer term officials visited Harvard in December to study the Harvard program in hopes of salvaging the Yale summer term, Shinagel said. He cited Yale's $6 million budget deficit last year and a "general trend away from college summer sessions" as possible causes for the decline of Yale's summer term.

Marshall R. Pihl '55, associate director of the Summer School, said yesterday Harvard's summer program made a profit last year after several years of running deficits.

Pihl said the reputation of the summer school has improved and the number of applications was higher last year than in previous years. Harvard has been "veering away from higher level courses and concentrating on more general courses" in order to attract more students from other colleges and talented high school students, Pihl added.

Applications from foreign students were also up as a result of intensive English language courses the school offers, he said. Pihl added that he does not expect the cancellation of Yale's summer term to cause a rise in applications to Harvard's Summer School.

Leonard W. Holmberg, registrar of the Harvard Summer School, said yesterday Yale's decision to experiment with a full summer term program was not financially practical. Holmberg said he believes the cancellation of the Yale program "may bring us back more of those Yale students who used to take Chem 20 up here in the summer.