"COST PLUS"

The revolt against the exercise of paternal authority by the college office has necessarily led to a diligent search for an effective substitute. More desire to learn has never checked the general abhorrence of nine o'clock classes nor stimulated attendance at uninteresting lectures. With the genius born of diligent application students of the Business School have hit upon an idea that may be the genesis of a new system of college regulations based upon self-interest. In brief it has been ascertained that the cost of each lecture to the individual student is no less than four dollars and five cents. Remarkable in itself this figure is a tribute to the ability of Business School students to include in their calculations all conceivable items of expenditure. It was this same faculty that caused the prospering of governmental "cost-plus" contractors during the past war.

Since the expenses of students in the college and in the business school are not greatly different, this sum must apply as well to the cost of lectures in the college. Even to that rare individual who has calculated the price of each lecture on the basis of tuition fees as fifty cents, four dollars and five cents must come as a shock. An added hour of sleep is certainly worth fifty cents, but at eight times that amount its desirability becomes questionable. And it would seem that once the pecuniary value of lectures and section meetings has become fairly fixed in the undergraduate mind the entire machinery of "cut pro" might be discarded as unnecessary. Modern man, says Adam Smith, is essentially economic; and he undoubtedly included college students in that category. All that is necessary to make the economic man act is to indicate clearly what course will profit him most pecuniarily; cutting of expensive lectures is not conducive to such profit.

But a cost account system of inducing attendance is not without its disadvantages. It might seem profitable not to come to college at all. And perhaps few professors could stand the strain of criticism based on the criterion of the cost of their lectures. With monetary calculation of the value of each day's activity would go the freedom and liberalism of college life; the most enjoyable spirit is certainly that of the old Eli refrain: Oh! father and mother pay all the bills and we have all the fun!