Summary of Scholarship Report

The following is a summary of the report of the Committee on Scholarships. The report now goes to the faculty for action.

The post-war inflation of costs has created a scholarship problem for the College. The minimum cost of going to Harvard College has increased about 50 per cent from about $1000 in 1940-41 to about $1500 or more now. Our scholarship money which comes from endowment has, of course, set increased anything like this amount.

Our income for scholarships is now about $400,000 a year, and we estimate that we now need about $600,000 a year available for financial aid to students if we are to give the same measure of financial aid to students that we did before the war.

We have customarily given scholarship assistance to about twenty percent of the Freshman class, and to a large number of these men and others in the upperclass year, as far as our financial resources would permit. Since the war, of course, many undergraduates have been helped by the voterans' programs. Even so, to meet the level of costs it has been necessary for us to use some of our accumulated wartime surpluses in scholarship funds. These surpluses are now disappearing, and we must seek new sources of financial assistance if we are not to cut back substantially our numbers of Scholarship students.

The College Scholarship Committee has been studying this problem since October seeking ways and means to expand our financial aid resources by loans and employment. It appears improbable that we shall be able to expand our scholarship funds very greatly except slowly, over a period of several years.

It is expected that during 1949-50 and thereafter a large number of undergraduates will receive financial aid from the College in a combination package involving loans and employment as well as scholarships. The relative amount of each element in any student's financial program will depend upon our resources and also on the Committee's judgment of the individual circumstances of academic standing and need.

Some details of the Committee's proposals follow:

Employment: The Committee has recommended there be closer coordination between the work of the Scholarship Office and the Student Employment Office. We have begun a search for part-time jobs within the University which can be assigned to undergraduates. It seems certain that during its summer meetings on upper-class scholarship applications, the Scholarship Committee will recommend a list of upperclassmen to receive special consideration in the assignment of jobs by the Student Employment Office.

Loans: The Committee has recommended that there be a reduction in interest rates on long-term loans granted by the College, and that money be made available for large amounts of such loans to undergraduates. At present grants from the College loan funds carry an interest rate of 41/2 per cent. We are presently studying loan fund systems of other colleges which charge no interest at all until after graduation, or very low rates of interest of 1 or 2 per cent.

Through the judicious use of remaining surpluses, supplemented by loans and employment, we hope to provide a normal amount of financial aid to undergraduates next year.

Of course, the College wished to expand its number of scholarship awards. We would like to increase our awards to freshmen from 20 to 25 per cent of each entering class, and also to increase the aid that we can give to upperclassmen. And toward this objective we are laying long-range plans which will require the increase in scholarship endowments as well as more effective use of loans and employment.

The College regards this as certainly one of its most important projects in the postwar period.