Winthrop Requests HCUA To Consider Uniform Rents

The Winthrop House Committee called on the HCUA last night to consider the possibility "of standardizing the rents for all rooms in all Houses at a price as near as possible to the $470 per year now charged to Freshmen."

The Committee also urged that the HCUA also consider a policy "of billing students for room, board, and tuition in one lump sum," and that "the grand total not be raised more than once every four years."

The action was in line with work begun last week by an HCUA Committee. The Committee is attempting to discover the feasibility of the proposed changes in policy.

Charles R. Breyer '63, Chairman of the Committee, pointed out that standardization of room rents and uniform billing "could cut costs considerably for the University and give House Masters and secretaries less work and more flexibility in assigning living space."

Breyer warned, however, that the University should still be held accountable for the way it divides the total among room, board, and tuition.

Although a standardization of rents would eliminate the few low priced rooms that Masters sometimes save for scholarship students, the Committee felt that a special Masters' Aid Fund could be etablished which the Master could use at his own discretion to help needy men.

"Such a fund would eliminate both the paternalism and the inability to adjust to individual cases often associated with centralized, bureaucratic scholarship programs," one member insisted.

He admitted that there is a discrepancy between the rooms in each House, but asserted that there is "even more inequalicy in the underpricing and over-pricing of rooms under the present system."

The Committee resolution stated that "one possible solution would be to assign pooms to seniors, juniors, and sophomores on a priority basis" and that members of each class would actually get rooms of about the same quality. A member noted that such a system works well and has held costs at Yale, and that "there is not an inordinate amount of roomchanging each year within Yale's Colleges."

The Committee also urged that "the Administration take any measures practical to cut College expenses" and suggested that "there is a lack of efficiency and a surplus of personnel" in many parts of the University.