An Attempt To Cut Down On the Ghosts

Graduate students who fail to pay tuition--people referred to as "ghosts" by GSAS administrators--learned earlier this week that the graduate school is considering a new tuition plan designed to halt this common practice.

Students who pay tuition may benefit if the new plan is approved, however, for it would substantially reduce their tuition after the fourth year here by requiring them to pay a fixed fee for the use of Harvard facilities.

Under the present system, graduate students who have been here for more than two years are supposed to pay up to $1000 tuition, according to need, even though they work primarily on their Ph.D. dissertations and do not attend classes.

The "ghosts" who do not register at the GSAS and thus avoid the $1000 charge find "other ways" to make use of Harvard libraries and other facilities, Peter S. McKinney, administrative dean of the GSAS, said this week.

McKinney aid he would "float" the new tuition proposal--which has not been made public yet--among GSAS administrators and then would send it on to the Committee on Fellowships and Other Aids and the Committee on Graduate Education for discussion.

But following the disclosure of the new proposal, graduate student members of the committees said they had discussed a similar proposal last year, had objected to it then and object to it now. They say it is merely another attempt by Harvard to get more money under its belt.