THROUGHOUT the extended Congressional debate on the two alternate tuition aid bills, legislators have lost sight of the central issue--aid to middle-income families struggling to put children through college. Tuition tax credit proposals, which call for a $250 tax credit to all families regardless of their need for such assistance, are clearly not the answer to this dilemma.

"It is a simple case of good and bad financial aid bills," R. Jerrold Gibson '52, director of the Office of Fiscal Services, said last week. 'The tuition tax credit bill is a bad bill in that it is too costly and gives money to the wrong people." Gibson has hit the nail on the head.

In fact, a Congressional Budget Office study last spring showed that 37 per cent of the money from tuition tax credit legislation would go to families with annual incomes over $25,000. Only 13 per cent of the outlay, the study reported, would go to those with incomes under $15,000.

President Carter has proposed an alternative--a program which would supplement existing federal financial aid programs for college students. The President's program includes increases in Basic Educational Opportunity Grants (BEOG), Supplementary Educational Opportunity Grants (SEOG), Work-Study programs and the Guaranteed Student Loan program.

Congressional aides estimate that both of these programs require an initial outlay of some $1.5 billion. After 1980, however, Carter's program would require little if any further funds. Tax credits, on the other hand, will drain an additional $5 billion by 1983. If Congress and the President are determined to spend this much money--the largest single financial aid to education bill in 20 years--then they might as well spend it right.

Harvard's Office of Government and Community Affairs has apparently been hard at work in Washington, lobbying for the defeat of tax credits. For its continuing opposition to this idea, the University's stance and efforts must be commended.

President Carter promised last week he will veto legislation containing tuition tax credit proposals. We urge the President to keep his promise and to kill tuition tax credits before this misdirected altruism is allowed to go any further.