Baby Bonus

One of the things which most distinguishes the American university from its European counterpart is the prevailing custom of marriage in graduate school. Ever since World War II graduate schools have been teeming with married students. Whether this sociological change has resulted in a more stable and serene breed of student is unknown, but it has undoubtedly had something to do with a startling rise in the birth rate among the educated classes. Not to be surpassed by the Veteran's Villages of the state universities, Harvard has recently done its bit to foster the large cultivated family, and incidentally save America from the Philistines. A few days ago Dean Elder announced that married students at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences would be allowed to make $300 more than single students.

Dean Elder's encouragement of marriage among graduate students is laudable. But the means that he is using seem ill-adjusted to the problem which is babies and not wives. Since most married student's wives work, life for the married, but babyless, can be a dream. But with the arrival of progeny, the wife's income is cut short, and expenses are increased by at least $700 per baby per year: offered $300 by the college, the student now needs perhaps $4000.

A more adequate solution then Dean Elder's would be a baby bonus given to teaching fellows without requiring them to work longer in return.

Under the present system married students have the advantage only of working more hours than unmarried students. This, of course, is no advantage since it means fewer hours of preparation for Ph.d. orals. It also means that fewer positions as teaching fellows are available to unmarried graduate students, many of whom support aged parents or younger brothers and sisters.

A baby bonus for graduate students would, of course, require a slight expansion of Harvard's budget. It might also result in continuous disruption of academic endeavor. But it would tend to increase the educated classes. And it is, at least, more realistic than Dean Elder's present program.