While deficit reduction is currently all the rage in Washington, Radcliffe College appears to be following a different philosophy.

Over the past four fiscal years, Radcliffe has run high deficits while rapidly increasing its administrative expenditures, according to recent financial reports.

Radcliffe officials acknowledge that the college is engaging in deficit spending, but say that such expenditures are part of a calculated strategy to provide for the college's future.

The large deficits have been incurred primarily through investments in the college's capital campaign, Radcliffe officials say. They predict the campaign will earn Radcliffe $100 million by the year 2000.

The financial reports also show that administrative costs have risen dramatically in the same period. This was caused, officials say, by the college's creation and centralization of departments which they say will be vital to Radcliffe in the next century.

In the Red

In each of the last three fiscal years, Radcliffe, according to its Reports of Financial Operations, has run deficits of over $2 million, although its total income has never been greater than $19.1 million.

In FY 1993, Radcliffe's deficit was approximately $2.2 million. The deficit reached about $3.5 million in FY 1994.

In the most recently-documented fiscal year, FY 1995, Radcliffe's expenses were $21.6 million and its earnings $19.1 million, resulting in a deficit of $2.5 million.

Over this three-year period, the lowest figure for Radcliffe's deficit as a percentage of its income was 13.3 percent. In FY 1994, the year of the highest deficit, Radcliffe's deficit as a percentage of its income was 20 percent.

Harvard's deficit levels over the past three years contrast sharply with Radcliffe's.

Although the University's deficits have ranged from $3.3 to $21.1 million over the three year period from FY 1993 to 1995, Harvard's deficit as a percentage of income has reached at most 1.6 percent.

But even Harvard's relatively minimal deficit is less than ideal, according to Vice President of Finance Elizabeth C. "Beppie" Huidekoper.

"Academic institutions want to be at break-even or better," she says. "You certainly don't want to be in deficit."

Director of the Budget Office Lawrence R. Ladd concurs.