TUITION

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

I appreciate very much the attention you have given my views on the financing of higher education. I think on the whole you have done an excellent job, and I am particularly grateful for your editorial and the excellent summary of the issues by Mr. Farquhar. He not only summarized my position effectively but also pointed out some relevant difficulties.

What concerns me is a statement in the CRIMSON just a few days ago in which you quote me as saying that tuition should rise by 100 per cent immediately. I have never made such a statement. In fact, all my proposals are related to a program for the next ten or twelve years. What is more, my proposal relates to the general situation in the United States and does not mean that every college need double its tuition. Some will have to go up more and some less.

Obviously, I would not recommend that tuition should now rise from $1250 to $2500. When I was consulted by Harvard authorities, I suggested a few years ago an increase of a few hundred dollars that year and was opposed to a large increase at that time. What I am suggesting is that in the next ten or twelve years it will be necessary to have substantial rises the country over. An increase of 100 per cent looks like a tremendous increase right now. But we must not forget that there will be some inflation and there will be an increase in per capita income aside from inflation. It is a good guess that in ten or twelve years the average money per capita income will rise 50 per cent. In that context, an increase of tuition of 100 per cent would not be a serious matter, especially if it is considered that other college costs would probably rise considerably less. In other words, an increase of tuition of 100 per cent in the next ten or twelve years will not involve students or their parents in sacrifice much beyond the present. Indeed, the objective is to increase the sacrifice to some extent because, on the whole, as compared to the rise of per capita income, tuition has become a great bargain in the last fifteen years and this is at the expense of the kind of product that the colleges are turning out. If the student pays more, he will also get a higher quality product, we hope. Seymour E. Harris '20,   Littauer Professor of Political Economy.