Bender Sees Financial Troubles

In his final report, Dean Bender made some observations on the trends discerned in looking back over the eight years (1952-60) he served as Dean of Admissions. Excerpts follow: Many students who might have lied under 1952 conditions simply didn't bother to apply in 1960.

Parenthetically I observe that here one of the admission officer's greatest concerns today. How many of those who don't apply nowadays are sensible in their decisions, and how many are interesting candidates put off by modesty or bad guidance or unwillingness to subject themselves to the confusion, uncertainties, and costs current admission procedures? . . .

Public school candidates increased the eight years from 1,839 to 3,481 while private school candidates went up only from 1,250 to 1,567. Practically all of the increase also came from outside Massachusetts and New England. Massachusetts candidates increased hardly at all--from 840 to 869 in the eight years--while non-Massachusetts candidates increased from 2,249 to 4,179. . . .

"The increase in number (1,350 to 2,804) and percentage (43.7 to 55.5) of scholarship candidates, plus the increase in public school candidates, suggests that our candidate group covers a broader range of economic back-grounds than it did formerly. This is almost certainly not true, however. What has happened is that we now have a much larger proportion of middle and upper-middle income candidates but have lost ground relatively, and probably absolutely, among the really low income families. The commuter group, which provide most of our lowest family income students over the past fifty years, has almost disappeared, and there is other evidence to indicate a decline in applicants from low income families. . . .

"Nevertheless, despite . . . gnawing doubts about the soundness of our criteria, I believe that the present Harvard student body is much the ablest academically in our history. What gives me even more satisfaction, it is an extraordinarily fine collection of human beings, by any standard. I have more doubts about the ability of Harvard College under present conditions to give these men an education worthy of their quality than I have about them as men or scholars. . . .

". . . in a decade of almost fantastic increase in our financial aid resources we were unable to increase significantly the proportion of the student body receiving financial assistance from the College because of the extraordinarily rapid and unprecedented increase in the cost of a Harvard education. Scholarship stipends grew steadily smaller in relation to the total cost, and the scholarship holder had to supply by self-help a steadily larger proportion of the total cost. The self-help gap was about $450 in 1950 and $800 in 1960. The average scholarship stipend was $1,082 below the official over-all student budget in 1950, $1,709 below it in 1960. This happened in a decade when our scholarship endowment increased by over twelve and a half million dollars, about 130 per cent, and our annual scholarship expenditures went up from just over half a million dollars to a million and a quarter. . . .

"Only a handful of American colleges have total endowments as large as our financial aid capital funds. Yet despite this extraordinary outpouring of generosity, which can hardly be expected to continue at this pace indefinitely, no significant gains were made in lowering the economic barrier to a Harvard education. . . .

"Harvard is rapidly becoming a college serving only upper-middle income families. . . . In 1950 the median family income of those admitted but denied scholarship aid who did not come to Harvard was $10,500. In 1960 the median family income of those admitted but denied aid who did not come was $13,000. . . .

"If recent trends continue the annual price tag for a Harvard education will be $4,000-$5,000 by 1970 and less than 5 per cent of American families will be able to pay for it from their own resources. . . .

"Of course the existence of rapidly growing surpluses of qualified candidates has made it easy so far to take the continuous-tuition-increase road, but easy money is dangerous money, for institutions as well as individuals. . . ."