Law School's 1964 NDEA Request Rises

A whopping increase in the Law School's request for student loan funds under the National Defense Education Act has pushed the University's total request for 1964-65 to $1.5 million, a jump of 43 per cent over last year.

The rise in the Law School's request, from $100,000 to $500,000, is apparently related to a comprehensive new financial aid plan that officials have been working on.

Harvard has no hopes of getting its full request, since the maximum available to any one institution under the amended NDEA act is $800,000. But Wallace McDonald '44, director of Financial Aid, explained that "we've always asked for over the ceiling, because requests are pro-rated on the basis of the money available, and if we asked just for the ceiling we wouldn't get it."

The expectation of financial aid officials is that the University will again qualify for the maximum NDEA allocation in 1964-65. But the outlook for the following year is clouded by the possibility that M.I.T. will apply for NDEA loan funds for the first time in 1965-66.

Since funds are allotted to states on the basis of college population, "we benefited from the fact that there were so many bodies being counted that M.I.T. was not asking money for," McDonald said.

M.I.T. is currently reviewing its whole financial aid program, and Jack Frailey, director of financial aid, said yesterday that while the university had not yet decided to seek NDEA funds "we very well might." M.I.T. has traditionally relied more heavily on loan funds than Harvard in awarding financial aid, and up to now has been able to meet the cost of the program through endowment.

In addition to the large request by the Law School, the College is asking for $400,000 in NDEA funds for '64-65. McDonald explained that this sum, added to income from endowed loan funds, would enable the College to meet its obligations without money from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Faculty funds would then be freed for other purposes.