Yale Plan Opens Option

Yale University is instituting the first long term tuition loan program in the United States this semester.

Thirteen hundred and fifty students are participating in the Tuition Postponement Program through which nearly one-fourth of the University is receiving $1,000,000 in loans.

The program allows students to repay tuition loans at a payment late proportional to their future earnings. It also combines the money loaned to each student into a class debt: borrowers must make payments until the collective class debt is paid.

Yale estimates that the "pay back" period for each class will be approximately 26 years.

James Robin professor of economics at Yale helped develop the program. "In the future," he said yesterday, more imaging must come from the students." The program is designed to aid students paying for their own education he said by "not saddling them with debts that disregard their ability to pay."

"People should not be forced into occupations in order to pay back then debts," he said under this program, pressure is transferred from the individual to the class. Those with high paying jobs will contribute more than those who are earning less.

Harvard: No Plans

John S. Harwell, assistant director of Financial Aid, said yesterday that Harvard had no plans to change from its current program of ten-year loans at three per cent to the Yale plan.

The Harvard program requires a borrower to pay a minimum of $120 a year regardless of what he is earning.

Harwell cited two objections to the deferred payment program. He said that the long term loan would mortgage the student's future unnecessarily, and he expressed concern that the plan might lower alumni giving.