Unlimited Off-Campus Plans Rely on Some Fancy Guessing

The policy of letting any senior move off-campus while charging an off-campus tax depends for its success on some delicate mathematical guesses.

Radcliffe's College Council approved such a plan on Monday, seting the tax for college services at $270, and the Mather subcommittee of the Committee on Houses approved the idea in principle for Harvard in its report last month to the full Committee.

If the proposed tax gets higher, fewer students will want to move off. But as fewer students want to move off, less of a tax is required for the college to break even financially. And if the tax is too high, it will create more resentment than the system it replaces.

Radcliffe's solution to this dilemma is bolder than Harvard's. The 'Cliffe decided on a tax figure, and then announced that every senior girl, without exception, may move off-off next year "on a trial basis" (although girls under 21 will need parental permission). If every senior at Radcliffe chooses to move out, this will cost Radcliffe a great deal of money. Such an exodus is not expected, however, and it if occurs, Radcliffe can end its trail after one disastrous year.

But the subcommittee chaired by Richard T. Gill '48, Master of Leverett House, is pursuing a more cautious line at Harvard. "We hope to be able to achieve a policy in which all seniors could move out," Gill said yesterday, "but this would depend on the numbers. If a great many wanted to move off, on-campus rents would have to go up." This, Gill said, was unacceptable.

Gill said his committee has determined a preliminary figure for Harvard's off-campus tax, but he is not at liberty to reveal it until further study. He did say, however, that he expects "a slight reduction in the total number of live-outs with this fee." At present, he admitted, "people can save money by living out due to the law fee [$25] which does not cover the House system's costs of non-residence."

The overall reduction which Gill expects does not necessarily mean that fewer seniors would move off than now do. About 60 juniors are off-campus this year, and this would not be permitted once Mather House opens in the Fall of 1969. Nonetheless Gill expects that the number of seniors who will want to move off will not be much greater than the 150 which the College allowed off this year. Even now, without the larger fee, Gill said, "living out has a strong appeal for a limited number of students."

Radcliffe's Dean of Residence, Genevive H. Austin, said the four girls on her students' residence committee estimate that 80 'Cliffe seniors will move off-off next year, compared with the 45 Radcliffe permitted off-off this year. Mrs. Austin admitted that her own estimate was "somewhat higher." If only 80 girls leave, she added, Radcliffe will not suffer financially.

At Harvard, another variable complicates the calculations: the size of the College. It is "swollen" now, Gill believes, and might get smaller, but no one can predict this accurately.