HARVARD GAZETTE ARCHIVES

Financial Aid Keeps College Accessible, Rudenstine Tells Congressional Commission

By Ken Gewertz

Gazette Staff

Strong programs of need-based student aid, especially in the form of scholarships, are vital to making excellent undergraduate education accessible to students from across the economic spectrum, President Neil L. Rudenstine told members of the National Commission on the Cost of Higher Education last Friday.

The Commission, established last summer by Congressman Howard "Buck" McKeon, is charged with examining the rising cost of higher education. McKeon chairs a House subcommittee responsible for reauthorizing the Higher Education Act, which governs the flow of nearly $40 billion in federal grants and loans to an estimated 5 million students nationwide.

Chaired by William Troutt, president of Belmont University in Nashville, the Commission has conducted meetings in various U.S. cities. Last Friday's meeting, at which Rudenstine was invited to give testimony, took place at Northeastern University in Boston. The Commission must report its findings to Congress by Dec. 11.

The Economics of Access

Rudenstine said that he wanted to focus on Harvard's approach, not because it represents a "platonic ideal" suited to all institutions of higher education, but because it is, nevertheless, "a powerful model" that "illustrates a systematic effort to address a serious problem."

At approximately $30,000 a year, the full price of a Harvard College education is beyond the reach of a great many students and their families, Rudenstine said. And even that figure represents only two-thirds of what it actually costs to educate undergraduates, the rest largely being underwritten by endowment and annual gifts.

Given these circumstances, he said, Harvard College has long worked hard to remain accessible to outstanding students, whatever their economic means, through a program of need-blind admissions and strong need-based student aid.

"We want our doors to be open to the most able and promising students -- rich, poor, or in-between," he said.

Rudenstine noted that two-thirds of Harvard undergraduates receive some form of financial aid, totaling $80 million this year, through scholarships, loans, and work-study jobs. Some $42 million takes the form of scholarships, and nearly nine-tenths of those scholarship dollars come from Harvard funds.

Almost half of all undergraduates qualify for scholarship grants, averaging $14,000. Added to that are loans and jobs that cover another $6,500. Thus, for nearly half of Harvard undergraduates, the average amount remaining to be paid, on a current basis, is reduced to roughly $9,500 -- about one-third of the full price.

Rudenstine emphasized that students who qualify for aid come from a broad range of backgrounds. Currently, approximately 375 scholarship students are from families with annual incomes under $20,000 a year, while around 250 are from families with incomes greater than $120,000.

By investing heavily in need-based scholarships, Harvard not only keeps its doors open, but also tries to avoid leaving its students with huge debts upon graduation, Rudenstine said. Almost half the members of the Class of 1997 managed to graduate without any outstanding loan debt, while only 8 percent graduated with debt of more than $20,000.

Even with generous programs of need-based aid, Rudenstine said, "I do not at all underestimate the severe problems and real anxieties faced by many students and families struggling to pay for college. We need to keep up the effort to moderate the growth of tuition and fees, as we have been doing."

Harvard College has lowered the rate of tuition growth each of the last five years, and the increase for 1997-98 -- 4.1 percent -- was the lowest in percentage terms since 1969, a trend he said that Harvard hopes to continue.

Still, he said, "whatever the exact percentage increase in next year's tuition and fees, the full price of attending Harvard will still be higher than a great many students and families can reach on their own. We will be left to do what I believe it is absolutely essential for us to do: reaffirm and redouble our commitment to a program of need-blind admissions and strong need-based student aid."

The Cost of Learning

Rudenstine went on to describe some of the factors that influence the economy of universities committed to combining undergraduate education, graduate and professional education, and advanced research. While prior Commission witnesses had addressed such topics as the costs of science and of government regulation, he focused on curricular breadth and depth, the challenges facing university libraries, and the rise of new information technologies.

Rudenstine said that the breadth of Harvard's undergraduate curriculum is represented, in part, by the Core, with some 85 to 100 courses taught each year in a wide range of fields -- more than 90 percent of them, at last count, by tenured faculty members.

He also described the array of department-based course offerings (more than 2,000 in number) as "an incredible invitation to explore a vast universe of knowledge and ideas." He affirmed the educational value of such curricular breadth, underscoring the role of universities like Harvard in preserving and expanding the record of human civilization over the decades and centuries, even if not every course could be readily justified simply by looking at current enrollments.

For example, he asked, "Is it really 'cost-effective' to teach the Classics, when relatively few students choose it as a concentration? In response, we have to ask ourselves whether we would really want to abandon, now and for generations to come, the effort to understand the major writers and thinkers of ancient Greece and Rome, whose works have been so integral to the shaping of our culture. If we were to let the study of Classics wither away, what would be next? Archaeology? The Renaissance? Buddhism?"

Besides, he said, subjects that in one era may seem obscure and of doubtful "relevance" can later emerge in a very different light. He cited the example of East Asian studies, which as late as the 1930s attracted only a handful of students, but today has blossomed into an area of intensive interest and high enrollments.

Genuine strength in such fields is not built overnight, Rudenstine said. "It takes a sustained, farsighted commitment, over long periods, to seek very substantial resources, persuade donors, stare down skeptics, acquire the right books and manuscripts, train the right graduate students, and build not simply a faculty, but a genuine program," he said. Endowment plays a crucial role in the process, so that professorships and programs can be created and sustained without intensifying the pressure on student fees.

Keeping abreast of selected new fields is also an important part of Harvard's commitment to providing curricular breadth and depth, Rudenstine added. He noted that Harvard's newest undergraduate concentration -- environmental science and public policy -- is rooted in a highly interdisciplinary approach to learning, and has already attracted more than 100 concentrators in its first few years.

The larger point, Rudenstine said, is that undergraduates stand to benefit greatly from being part of a university environment that challenges them to engage directly in the process of research, exploration, and discovery.

The Harvard Library: Keeping up with Change

Rudenstine next discussed challenges facing the university library. Harvard is home to the largest university library system in the world, with more than 13 million volumes, more than 90 different libraries, and a current annual budget of $80 million.

Like other university libraries, Rudenstine said, Harvard's faces spiraling costs, driven largely by the rapidly escalating cost of subscriptions to essential scholarly journals, especially scientific journals. Meanwhile, the advent of the "digital library" is requiring major new adaptations and investments.

Harvard is pursuing a number of strategies for preserving quality and adapting to change while containing costs, he said. Acquisitions are rising at a significantly reduced rate; staff growth has been controlled despite growing demand for services; cooperation with other libraries is on the rise; and the Harvard Depository has enabled far more cost-effective storage of literally millions of volumes.

Meanwhile, the library is seeking new endowment of nearly $80 million, so that rising expenses will have the smallest possible impact on tuition and other elements of the University's economy.

Rudenstine emphasized that Harvard's research collections play a critical and expanding role in the academic life of undergraduates, who as a group now borrow more books from Widener than either faculty members or graduate and professional students. Undergraduate borrowing from Widener was up 11 percent in 1996-97 alone, to more than 80,000 items, he noted -- a further illustration that college students are increasingly involved in the process of original research and discovery.

Information Technology

Rudenstine concluded his testimony with brief observations on new information technologies that support teaching and learning. The Internet, the World Wide Web, and related technologies are versatile and interactive tools that put students in the driver's seat, he said, reinforcing their ability both to explore and discover on their own, and to interact with faculty members and fellow students through e-mail, discussion groups, and other novel means.

"Of course, creating the infrastructure to support these elaborate new networks carries a large price tag," Rudenstine said. Harvard has already invested at least $50 million in wiring dormitories, offices, classrooms, and other facilities, and in hiring relevant staff. Within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, he noted, expenditures related to information technology now account for roughly 15 percent of the annual operating budget, and are growing at approximately 20 percent a year.

While affirming that face-to-face human exchange is as essential as ever to excellent undergraduate learning, Rudenstine observed that "the potential of these new technologies is very high" and that "they represent a relentless and irreversible development, not a mere fad or distraction."

As a result, he said, "we will have to invest, carefully yet actively, in these important new components of the educational process. And, as we do, we will have to seek gifts, endowment, and other forms of support to absorb much of the costs."