The federal government is "softer, gentler and, most important, less expensive and easier to repay," Nixon says.

The change would most affect students in the Law, Business and Medical schools, where students tend to borrow more to pay for their education.

"I believe [this] to be very important for medical students and health profession students in general because they do borrow a great deal of money for their education," said Theresa J. Orr, assistant dean and director of admissions and financial aid at Harvard Medical School.

"It doesn't seem to me that it's in the spirit of statutory limits that a graduate student would not have access to full statutory limits if they have underutilized as an undergraduate," she added.

Proponents say that this change would not affect the loan burden of undergraduates and that it is not an attempt to shift funding away from university grants.

At one point, the University did consider pursuing a raised federal ceiling for undergraduates, but the plan was abandoned in the light of growing criticism on the Hill of rising tuition costs and efforts to shift more of the cost burden of higher education to students.

Nixon reports that, while greeted with a negative response at first, "people certainly don't want to disadvantage students...I'm optimistic that we're starting to make some progress."

Kennedy and Tierney have yet to take stands on this proposal, according to their offices.

In addition to these two efforts, Harvard supports revisions of the need formula to aid students who save and earn their own money for education-though this is not one of the University's priorities, Nixon said.

"We're not really arguing numbers, we're arguing programmatic issues."