Cliffies Pay More for Hamburgers As Graduate Center Meets Inflation

The Radcliffe Graduate Center, daily lunchroom of at least 250 Cliffies, has succumbed to inflation and raised its prices.

For the past few years, Cliffies have been allowed to eat in the graduate cafeteria as an alternative to having lunch in their own dorms. They are given an allotment of 80 cents per day, which was ample in the days when hamburgers were 30 cents, cottage cheese a nickel, and ice cream and fruit, only a dime.

But now, the allotment has stayed the same, but most of the prices have gone up five cents per item. Hamburgers now cost 35 cents, and the Cliffies who like two (without the caloric rolls, of course,) will just have to skip the salad, or pay the extra in cash.

"Food prices were going up, and we were no longer even breaking even," said Marjorie L. Russ, Dietician, in explaining the increases which became effective at the beginning of reading period.

Most Cliffies met the rise in prices with resignation. "I suppose they wouldn't if they didn't have to," said one. "But I do feel that often we are just paying for inefficient organization."

There is still a possibility that the Cliffies' allowance might be raised proportionately with the price increases, Miss Russ said. But until this happens, some Cliffies may eat elsewhere.

"I've just stopped going there," one said--"I can't afford two glasses of milk anymore."

First Elsie's and then the Graduate Center. But Harvard has refused to be chased up the spiral: Dudley House prices will stay firm, and the hamburger still goes for 30 cents.