Work-Study Needs Work

LAST SPRING Presidents Bok and Horner signed an agreement between the two schools they head supposedly clarifying for all time the status of Radcliffe under the "non-merger merger" of 1971 and to explicate the ties of the school's administration to its 2000 undergraduate women. For some reason people are still confused, and recent problems with the work-study program and the National Direct Student Loan program show that undergraduates are being hurt by the confusion.

The agreement last spring followed more than five years of uncertainty about Radcliffe, which has been committed since 1971 to providing its students with a coeducational and co-residential college experience, and which seemed to be moving toward complete absorption by Harvard. Knowing that alumnae would not stand to see their alma mater swallowed up, and proclaiming that the Radcliffe tradition must live on, Horner last spring agreed to turn over the day-to-day management of the affairs of women undergraduates to Harvard, while Radcliffe would focus primarily on graduate and research programs.

One statement in that agreement, aimed at calming the fears of women who did not want to be cut loose from the protection of Fay House and turned over to the mercy of University Hall. It said, "Undergraduates admitted to and subsequently enrolled in Radcliffe will thereby be enrolled, in accordance with present practice, in Harvard College with all the rights and privileges accorded to Harvard College enrollment." But this year women are finding that for a variety of bureaucratic reasons, work-study funds do not exactly qualify as a right and privilege, and next year they may well find that loan money does not qualify either.

Students become eligible for work-study funds according to the amount of money their parents contribute toward their college expenses. This year men with a parental contribution level of up to $3000 were able to take work-study jobs for at least part of the academic year while the contribution level for women never inched above the zero mark. This led to a higher percentage of undergraduate men than women with work-study jobs and a fairly vehement campaign by the Radcliffe Union of Students (RUS) protesting the disparity.

The problem stemmed from two sources. Radcliffe mismanaged its work-study funds over the summer, spending 60 per cent of the money on students with summer jobs, and therefore had only enough left over to provide 80 women with term-time work-study jobs. Harvard, in the meantime, received a large increase in its original work-study grant from the government in order to fund sizeable graduate school work-study programs, but the graduate schools did not claim as much money as Harvard had expected. Harvard reallocated the unused funds in February to undergraduate men, but women, as Radcliffe students, could not share the windfall.

The newest revelation: Radcliffe may have to cut back drastically next year on the number of women with low-interest loans from the National Direct Student Loan (NDSL) program because the government slashed Radcliffe's grant by 45 per cent. This mix-up ironically stems from the academic year '76-'77, when freshman men were denied NDSL loan funds so that Harvard would have enough to continue its loans to upperclassmen. Radcliffe had plenty of NDSL money for everyone, but a number of freshman women thought they too were ineligible and did not apply for loans. When it was too late, Radcliffe realized it would not be able to spend all of its NDSL grant and next year will pay for the underutilization to the tune of $62,000.

The enemy here is bureaucracy. When someone asks why disparities persist in the handling of Harvard and Radcliffe financial aid programs, administrators' fingers all seem to point to a different level of the hierarchy. The Student Employment Office is responsible for the day-to-day management of the work-study program, but University Hall and Radcliffe administrators have input into policy decisions, and the Office of Fiscal Services fills out the applications for grants. The Financial Aid Office determines a student's need for both employment and loans, and a separate loan office gets into the act with the NDSL program. In addition, the work-study program has problems on the national level, with an application process that rewards schools that can fill out forms most cleverly (although they are not necessarily the schools with the greatest need).

Far from finding solutions, administrators have not even agreed on the problem yet. Looking at the figures from a different angle shows that Radcliffe is not receiving less work-study money than other area schools with similar enrollments--but Radcliffe feels disadvantaged because it is immersed in the gigantic Harvard community whose undergraduates benefit from graduate school work-study money that women cannot share. Burton I. Wolfman, administrative dean of Radcliffe, says women are not significantly suffering from unemployment because of the work-study tangle although they may be underemployed if they are forced to take jobs that do not have the "educational component" required of work-study jobs. With the NDSL program, administrators are not even sure how many women may be affected by the cut-back next year, but they plan to appeal to the government for more funds.

THESE PROBLEMS necessitate an examination of Harvard and Radcliffe's commitment to coeducation, with a sharp eye out to equitable distribution of benefits to both men and women. Totally sex-blind practices are impossible as long as Radcliffe remains a separate institution--a course it seems determined to follow and not without good reason. For example, Wolfman says that if Harvard and Radcliffe applied together for work-study money then they could equalize the funding for men and women, but Radcliffe would lose over $1 million in other grants that depend on its independent status. But if Radcliffe is truly looking out for the interests of women, as it claims to be, it must do more than just voice regret after a problem comes to light. Radcliffe must take more of a leading role in shaking up Harvard offices long used to working in an "old boy" network where women come second if at all.

Harvard, in the meantime, must mobilize its financial and administrative resources to find ways to overcome disparities that are the inevitable result of the confusing legal status of Harvard and Radcliffe. These disparities could just as easily hurt men as women. The University needs a firm policy on the allocation of work-study funds in the summer to prevent Radcliffe's woes of last summer. Some sort of permanent job program must be developed for students on financial aid from either school who can not get work-study jobs. Most important, administrators must make careful analyses of data from different programs for undergraduates to determine who is affected and how by each program. This will insure that different offices will not walk over someone who they do not know is involved.

There is no reason why a complex bureaucracy has to work to the disadvantage of those it is supposed to serve. What has happened with work-study and NDSL funds is inexcusable, but the damaging effects can be prevented with a little more coordination and planning.