MORE THAN THE TRAFFIC WILL BEAR

A great deal of anxiety has been caused among the students because of average yearly expenditures by the high price of rooms in the Houses for next year. Even the increased cost of maintaining a House as compared with a dormitory does not seem, to the average man, sufficient reason to justify the placing of room prices in the old Freshman dormitories on a par with those in new buildings such as Eliot House. As a technical question, the basis for the increase in room rents is at once more difficult and more cogent than would appear to most students.

The University fixes the average of prices at what it perceives as a fair and just rate, using for comparison the standards of other universities similar to Harvard. In effect, this principle is that the University while aware of its moral obligation to be as fair to the students as possible, at the same time charges what the traffic will bear. Since costs of education are considerably more than receipts from the students, this appears reasonable.

Students do not begin to pay for their education. Therefore it should be given with the least possible financial hardship to all who are intellectually capable. Of all the facts and figures to be found, none are more compelling than the simple statements of students with average yearly budgets, who say that they will not be able to pay the increased prices. Of the 860 men who applied for rooms in the Houses next year, how many will eventually be forced to room elsewhere because of the high rates? Certainly there will be many. In past years there was a great mass of rooms priced between $200 and $300. In the Houses the mass is between $250 and $350. The mere $50 increase is in many cases prohibitive. The man of medium income, who spends as little as possible, is most hard hit.

In effect, the University in its position as a monopolist has taken a step which may exclude some of its present students, and future men of similar financial standing. Seen in conjunction with the raise of tuition from $300 to $400, this new increase in the cost of education means that the University will be setting higher financial standards than its most populous class of undergraduates can bear.