In fact, the percentage of those studentsaccepted by Harvard who chose to matriculate-knownas the admissions yield-climbed to a record highthis year, even without a formal change in aidpolicy.

But President Neil L. Rudenstine said thechanges were made necessary by the heavy burdenplaced by loan and work-study requirements on somestudents.

He and other officials said they were concernedthat work-study jobs caused Harvard students tomiss out on potentially rewarding extracurricularactivities, and that heavy loans forced somegraduates to value earnings over interest inchoosing a profession.

"We were trying to create a parity ofopportunity," said Director of Financial Aid JamesS. Miller.

These problems had existed in past years aswell, but officials said they chose to change aidpolicies now, partly because of the pressure frommore generous competing schools.

"There's no question the institutional changesmade by Yale, Stanford, Princeton and MIT made ashift in the landscape," Rudenstine said. "[Thenew policy at Harvard] is also competitive; Idon't think we should be...disingenuous aboutthat."

In addition, the aid increase was made possibleby a ballooning endowment-now valued at $12.8billion for the entire University-and a successfulcapital campaign that has so far raised about $144for financial aid.

"[These changes] would have been extremely hardwithout the campaign...and without exceptionalendowment earnings," Rudenstine said. "I'm glad wetook the time to think, and I'm glad [wedeveloped] a very strong program.