Labelled the most radical threat to higher education in years, the cuts Bennett introduced proposed slashing federal funds for college scholarships, grants and loans by 48 percent and would have struck more than a million students from the eligibility rolls.

But due to fierce lobbying by colleges and universities, both houses of Congress approved budget resolutions calling for approximately $2.2 billion more in education programs, especially those for student financial aid.

Harvard officials still have a lot of work in store for them. They say that although the most recent budgetary battles have been won, dangerous problems exist in federal funding for scientific research and student financial aid.

Of particular concern to Harvard and other higher education officials is the trend of scientific research funding under the Reagan Administration. In the last seven years the Department of Defense has garnered 90 percent of all new research programs, while the military accounts for more than half of all research and development work in the nation. This trend has diverted funds from the basic scientific research conducted at America's research universities.

"The Reagan Administration argues that there is an increasing research budget in the U.S. and they are correct," says Torricelli. "The problem is that military research is substituting for the important basic civilian research and military research is not always transferable to the civilian economy and industry anymore."

Moreover, Harvard officials see dangers in the increasing trend toward "Big Science" projects such as the billion dollar supercollider. They warn that neglecting smaller scientific projects will stifle a large amount of invaluable scientific innovation.

"The recent discoveries in superconductors show that many times the most important advances come from small science, and this must be saved," Shattuck says. He also predicts a crisis in the lack of funds for campus research facilities, which have not seen substantial improvement in almost 20 years. technology and many of the sciences because ofofficial restrictions on communications.

And the National Academy of Sciences has warnedin recent reports that American science and theAmerican economy crucially depend on opennessand communication. "If we continue to developpolicies along their [the Soviets'] lines, theywon't need to steal our information anymore," Parksays