TAKING A REEF AT LAST

The announcement that University officials have at last recognized the serious problem presented by room rents which make an undue demand on student finances, and that they are taking some steps, however preliminary, to correct the situation, must be hailed with satisfaction. But the conduct of the House Plan from the financial point of view has not been altogether capable, and even the promised situation is far from satisfactory.

First, the administration in one notable particular has been guilty of lack of foresight. The Houses were begun in the high tide of prosperity, and rents were fixed on a basis of a "bull market". The administration at Yale, dilatory and ineffective though it has been in establishing a House Plan which will not go into operation until 1933, nevertheless had the foresight to set aside a fixed fraction of the Harkness gift and use this fraction as an endowment of the Houses. No such provision was made at Harvard.

Second, as events have proved, the allotment of single and double rooms was unskilfully calculated. The rearrangements proposed at Lowell House and in Dean Hanford's statement bear witness to this. Lehman Hall has also unfortunately been troubled by the fact that many men who can afford $400 rooms prefer suites almost equally good on a higher floor, at a much lower figure.

For the first time, on March 17, 1932, the University has officially admitted that the House rents are too high. Many have urged this view upon the authorities long ago. Officers of the University admitted in private that rents are too high but any discussion invariably ended in a stalemate. There was no assurance that the University would officially take any recognition of the complaints. This unwise thwarting of legitimate curiosity has engendered a great deal of just resentment. The delay in making these long-awaited innovations is largely the result of the unique manner in which Harvard is directed. Two units of the House Plan are in their second year of existence, and dissatisfaction with the rents charged, evident on all sides, has been recognized by the Masters. It does not speak well for the esprit de corps of the directors of the Plan: President Lowell, the seven Masters, and the seven Senior tutors, that they should only recently have acknowledged by word and deed that the rents are too high. In frank and open discussion the matter might long since have been aired; the accomodations planned for September, 1932, might have been provided this fall.

The proposed innovations are only a preliminary attack on what is admittedly a knotty problem. "Rooms in the Houses do not cost too much for what they are worth; they cost too much," has been a telling criticism. Under the new plan the same amount of money will come into House coffers; it will simply be collected from more men, some of whom will play less and get less. This redistribution, with its introduction of the unfortunate multiple suite, previously avoided in all the new Houses scarcely promises to result in more rooms priced between $200 and $250, the great need. On admitting more men to the luxurious Harkness units, charging some less and giving them less, Harvard has taken a reef in its financial sails. What is needed, more than redistribution, is a larger number of moderately priced rooms. These can come only as a result of reduction in the total rents, to which the financial ability of Lehman Hall should be principally devoted.