Happy endings--at least sort of--are alive and well and living it up in the Radcliffe work-study program.

The federal Office of Education late this week provided the happy ending for about 150 Radcliffe students looking for jobs. The government allowed Harvard to transfer $20,000 of its work-study budget to Radcliffe to relieve the school's strapped work-study program.

The unprecedented transfer helped ease a problem that arose when Radcliffe administrators announced there would be few jobs available for Radcliffe students this year because the school overspent its work-study budget last summer.

Last year Radcliffe spent over 60 per cent of its work-study budget in the summer, leaving only enough money to provide 80 women with such jobs during the school year.

Burton I. Wolfman, administrative dean of Radcliffe, said the decision by the federal government to allow "some limited sharing of resources" between Harvard and Radcliffe will probably extend to next year as well. He added that after that, Radcliffe would probably receive enough money in its own right to make the transfers unnecessary.

Lawrence E. Maguire, director of student employment, announced new procedures designed to limit spending during the summer, and thus keep the money-go-round problem to a minimum next year.

From now on, Harvard and Radcliffe will only be able to spend about one-third of their work-study budgets during the summer--a figure that translates into about 60 jobs for women, and 155 for men, for this year.