Francis J. Rosa '49 grew up in Somerville, minutes from Harvard Yard. As a boy, he enjoyed walking to the University's campus and visiting the collections housed in Harvard's museums.

But while the museums were free, Harvard was not.

"Many times I used to walk over to Harvard and go over to the [Peabody] Museum to look at the glass flowers, and I would say to myself, 'Gee, I wonder what it would be like to go to college here,"' he says.

The Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944, commonly known as the GI Bill, opened Harvard's doors to Rosa.

The bill provided millions of World War II veterans with money for tuition, books and living expenses, sparking an unprecedented rise in admissions and diversity in the nation's universities.

During this time enrollment at Harvard, after sinking to a wartime low, skyrocketed to almost double the prewar norm in the late 1940s. Veterans flooded the campus, making up over half of the Class of 1949.

For those students who had served in the war, the GI Bill offered a unique opportunity to continue their education at America's oldest university.

"I didn't think I could afford to go. The GI Bill gave me that chance," Rosa says.

"I loved every minute of it," he adds. "I don't want to call it a dream because I never dreamed I'd go to Harvard."

Cramming at Harvard

During the spring of 1944, with World War II raging in Europe, a mere 671 students enrolled in Harvard College. Only three years later, wall-to-wall cots lined the Indoor Athletic Building (now the Malkin Athletic Center) with 5,353 men registered, the most in Harvard's history.

The massive influx of students, brought on by the promise of the GI Bill, led to a crisis of overcrowding.

"Every room that had had two people had at least three, every four person room had five or six people," says Timothy G. Foote '49.

To compensate for the overcrowding, Harvard erected temporary housing throughout the campus, converted the Jarvis tennis courts into housing for married couples and even leased the Hotel Brunswick in Boston to serve as a temporary dorm.

Dean of the College Paul Buck described the drastic rise in student population as "the greatest pressure ever put on American colleges," in The Crimson on April 23, 1946.