Lucia Smythe, Colby's director of financial aid, said that the colleges and universities who meet annually to discuss admissions and financial aid used to pay Harvard directly for administrative services.

But Student Aid Services, Inc.--the private, for-profit company run by three Harvard officials and a Bowdoin College administrator--was formed in 1983 when the clerical work became "too burdensome" for Harvard to do itself, said Colby College President William R. Cotter '58.

According to Smythe, each participating college sends computer tapes to SAS containing the financial aid information of students admitted to the school.

SAS then "collates" the taped information and provides each school with data about each admitted student's financial aid awards from other schools, she said. This allows colleges to compute similar financial aid package, for individual students, avoiding what many have called a "costly bidding war" for top recruits.

SAS charges each participating school about $700, Smythe said.

Several years ago another computer firm bid for the job of financial aid processing, Smythe said, but was not able to do it as inexpensively as SAS.

SAS has expanded its services in recent years, and now provides information for a larger group of colleges the Colby financial aid officer said.

Colleges looking for more information on their student body can pay SAS to analyze the backgrounds of admitted students, said Smythe. The firm can give universities detailed information on students in many different categories, including geographic and ethnic backgrounds, she said.

Another service provided by SAS is a "multiple depositors survey," which allows colleges to see if accepted students have also committed to other universities, Smythe said.

Smythe said that participating financial aid officers kept all information supplied by SAS confidential.