Muscles and Dollars: II

In an earlier editorial, we recommended that in the event of a tuition rise, the College make the athletic participation card compulsory by including its cost in the tuition. Under such a system a bursar's card would carry with it the privileges to all H.A.A. facilities. This would require the student to pay little more toward the upkeep of the University athletic plant than the $70 he is paying each year now, and the athletics for all principle would be more genuinely applied than it is at present.

One more step would make application of that principle complete: inclusion of the cost of the season ticket-book in the tuition. Right now about fifty percent of the student body goes to football games. The H.A.A. estimates that about half of the remaining fifty percent stay away because the $21 now charged for a ticket book is beyond what those who can take football or leave it care to pay. If the cost of tickets were included in an overall cut out of the tuition, the price for a ticket book should come down to about $8 instead of $21. Where a student now pays a combined price of $41 for an athletic participation card and a ticket book, he would have to pay only $28.

Not only would such a plan put games within reach of more people than can attend them under the current system, but it would encourage greater use of the Universities athletic facilities. These facilities are abundant and varied because the College officials decided that broad physical training was worthwhile. The plan would also spare the Faculty of Arts and Sciences of having to dip into its capital (as it did last year) to pay the H.A.A.'s debts. This capital should be used for scholarships, buildings, and improvements in the academic program.

A pre-payment for the facilities of the H.A.A. would free the Admissions Office and other University officers completely from concern about fielding a football team that will draw crowds. Gate receipts would not be expected to pay for seventy-five percent of the H.A.A.'s expenses as they theoretically do now. Athletics at Harvard would be solvent, amateur, and available for all without high additional costs. Moreover, this plan would definitely promote athletics for all--for both participant and observer.