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Rosovsky Report Re-Evaluates Future of Graduate Education, Warns of Financial Problems

Dean Rosovsky's annual report to President Bok, mailed to Faculty members last week, calls for a review of the future of graduate education at Harvard in the face of a rapidly shrinking job market and diminishing financial resources.

Rosovsky asks the Faculty to re-examine the goals and content of graduate programs, financial aid policy, and the size of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) to adjust the University's graduate education to a reduced demand for Ph. D.S.

'Harvard Is Mine'

Rosovsky addresses four main issues in his report:

The severe reduction in the academic job market and its effect on attracting and educating graduate students;

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Withdrawal of monetary support by the federal government and private foundations, and the resulting strain on the Faculty budget;

The size and financial aid policy of the GSAS;

The future of graduate education in general and the GSAS in particular.

Rosovsky is in Manila this week and could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Rosovsky's 12-page report outlines the strains that a small job market and the withdrawal of federal aid are placing on graduate education.

Although higher education expanded tremendously in the '50s and '60s, the end of the population boom and economic recession forced retrenchment during the '70s, Rosovsky says.

Rosovsky estimates that in two years there will be ten Ph. D.s for every job opening.

Because of these dismal job prospects, Rosovsky says he fears "it will become difficult, and perhaps impossible, to continue to attract highly creative and intelligent young people to teaching and scholarship."

In addition, because the federal government and private foundations have withdrawn much of their monetary support to higher education, the Faculty must pay increasingly more of the cost of graduate education itself--thus placing great strains on the Faculty budget--Rosovsky says.

Rosovsky also discusses the present GSAS financial aid policy, which calculates a student's monetary needs and places the responsibility for funding the student on the individual's department.

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