The numbers are rolling in—President Lawrence H. Summers’ promise to bolster aid at the University’s graduate schools is likely to be both costly and complicated.

In his installation speech and in interviews since, Summers has said he hopes to coordinate a University-wide effort to put graduate student financial aid on fiscally sound footing.

“Inability to pay does not constrain students from coming to Harvard College and it should not constrain the most able students from coming here to Harvard to become scholars, or doctors, architects or teachers,” Summers said.

According to officials at the various schools, any serious attack on student aid problems is likely to cost tens of millions of dollars annually.

University officials stress that Summers’ initiative is only in its earliest fact-finding stages. Harvard’s graduate schools are pulling together data on current aid and explaining their unmet needs in response to a questionnaire sent out by the central administration.

A survey of three of the schools considered neediest by University officials shows that to meet “full need” for those schools alone would mean an increase of over $30 million dollars in aid, annually.

One University insider said increases to aid overall could exceed $50 million, and that even with some non-endowment sources, such a goal would require in excess of $1 billion dollars in newendowment.

It took the University six years and a surging economy to raise the $2.6 billion it raised during its biggest and most recent capital campaign.

Summers won’t say whether a similar capital campaign is an option now, calling such speculation premature. But Summers has said that ultimately, financial aid in the graduate schools would have to be addressed by sources of permanent funding, stressing that opening the schools to a diverse student body is a University-wide value.

Money however, is not the entire story.

Deans and financial aid officers from the various schools describe widely differing aid programs and ways to boost them, explaining why increasing graduate student financial aid will be a complex but worthy goal for the first-year president.

Students eagerly await more aid as well.

“Any improvements would be welcome,” said Shaun L. Rein, co-president of the Harvard Graduate Student Council. “It’s important that students don’t have to take into consideration financial concerns.”

Summers has been vague in describing his goal for graduate school financial aid—with good reason, many said.

At the College, students are admitted on a need-blind basis. The school pledges to make Harvard affordable through direct aid, work study, loans and other school-sponsored means. But Summers has not said what putting the graduate schools on the College’s level would practically mean.