Many Boston area colleges, including Harvard, are facing housing shortages as students appear to be returning to on-campus living in unexpectedly large numbers.

Officials at Harvard, Boston College, Boston University and Tufts last week attributed the students' return to a tightening of the off-campus housing market, higher rents and the reluctance of many landlords to lease apartments to students.

Currently, Harvard has about 150 students on a waiting list for on-campus housing. Susan A Neer, housing officer, said Thursday. More than 90 per cent of Harvard's 6500 students live on campus, Neer said.

Boston College has 370 students waiting for on-campus housing, Boston University 700 and Tufts 300, officials said. Of the four colleges. Harvard has the highest proportion of off-campus students who wish to live on campus but are unable to find space.

Almost all the students on on-campus waiting lists at the four schools are commuters, transfer students and students who filed their housing applications late, housing officials said.

"Basically, it's a supply and demand problem," Richard E. Collins, director of housing at B.C., said yesterday.

Body Politics

"There are simply more bodies than beds," Neer said.

Condominium conversion is one reason behind the shortage in available off-campus accommodations, housing officers at the schools said.

In addition, they said, landlords are refusing to rent to students because of allegedly poor treatment of the apartments and noisy lifestyles.

Conversely, some students are returning to living on campus because they are 9be the equivalent of a $14 million program in this country. The Canadian program gives direct subsidies to thousands of low and middle income homeowners to help them slash their fuel bills. The American program of tax incentives benefits only the rich. To take a tax credit, you have to spend money first. Of the less then 10 per cent of Americans who claimed tax credits for conservations purposes, more than 75 per cent were above the median national income, according to government statistics. President Carter's proposal in his economic recovery program for $975 million to weatherize lower and middle income homes is the right step, but it is a drop in the bucket. While the billions spent on synfuels and fusion are not benefitting anyone, a program of home insulation could provide direct and immediate relief for the poor. Such a program would also create thousands of jobs in the faltering home building and construction industries.

The government should split its strategy, giving insulation subsidies to the poor and increasing tax incentives for those above median income. In addition, the Congress should act swiftly to adopt Senator Malcolm Wallop's (R-Wyo.) bill that would increase industrial tax credits for the installation of energy-efficient equipment from 10 to 30 per cent. While they're at it, Congress should also pass the Building Energy Efficiency Performance Standards Act, shelved last year because of enforcement difficulties. The bill would coordinate six federal agencies in the regulation of the building and housing industries.

CONSERVATION MAY make sense, but many people still consider it un-American--including the Republican Party. Americans are used to spending and consuming, not tightening their belts, and Congress has balked at any attempts to place a tax on gasoline in order to reduce consumption. Last spring Yergin proposed a gasoline tax that, no matter how politically impractical, is simpler and more effective than John Anderson's. Yergin proposed a tax that would reach $1 a gallon in five years, with direct rebates to purchasers. According to Yergin's statistics, that would reduce national gasoline consumption by 25 per cent.

Aside from conservation, the government should continue to explore alternative sources that don't pollute and won't provoke community opposition. Some experts believe that hydroelectric power could, with significant technological advances, undergo a renaissance in the Northeast. Solar energy is also in need of research funds. Photovoltaics, the direct conversion of the sun's rays into electricity, is a promising but so far commercially unfeasible technology. Current solar technologies are also valuable, but they require very specific types of construction and building materials. With government tax incentives, however, a solar house does not have to cost any more than a non-solar one, and can save anywhere from 50 to 90 per cent on an average-sized home's energy consumption.

Solar energy, however, is still thought of as the energy source of visionaries and flakes. While synfuels and fusion are celebrated, solar is scoffed at and insulation programs are considered as afterthoughts. This winter there are millions of Americans who could benefit from national insulation and solar development programs. Instead the only ones who will benefit from the national energy policy are the corporations and scientists in the fields of synfuel and fusion