DOLLARS AND SENSE

The announcement that 1161 undergraduates have applied to the Student Employment Office for positions, some receiving steady employment, some temporary employment, and some no employment at all, emphasizes once again the widespread need among students for increased financial assistance.

Depression has meant a terrific deflation of students' incomes, and a similar deflation of the return upon the University's invested endowments. The increased demand for scholarships has been faced with a dwindling supply of funds. Scholarship funds declined from the peak of $196,000 reached in 1930 to $168,000, a sum which was distributed to 547 of the 1,000 eligible applicants.

Colleges all over the country have been faced with the problem of students' financial needs. Yale is meeting the problem by requiring a financial statement from all applicants for admission, and urging students who will need financial assistance, except those of outstanding promise, to attend state universities or other less expensive schools. Yale has also raised scholarship funds by alumni subscription. Harvard's answer to the problem has been, the $40,000 emergency fund for student employment, helpful, but inadequate, and often requiring more of a student's time than he can afford to give from his studies.

Underlying the whole question is the need of increasing the funds available for student aid, and the need for better distribution of all funds that are made available. President Conant and Financial Vice-President Lowes have begun a campaign to raise money among the Harvard alumni. With Henry L. Shattuck, Treasurer of the Corporation, reporting an operating profit of $475,000 for the fiscal year 1932-33, some of the University's funds might well be applied, temporarily at least, to meet the unprecedented need for financial assistance. Distribution of all funds, scholarships, aids, loans, and employment, should be in the hands of one consolidated body, as Dean Hindmarsh has long advocated, to insure a coordinated and equitable allotment in line with financial and scholastic needs.