Top Priority

Among the Multitude of problems to which, a college must give its best thinking and its unflagging effort there is bound to be one or two of top priority at any given time—and defining that priority is no easy task for trustees and those more directly involved in the administration of the college. At Dartmouth today the decision has been made to give first importance to the problem of a more adequate scholarship aid program. The Dartmouth Development Council is devoting its most strenuous efforts to this matter in the belief that it is, as President Dickey said in his recent statement to the alumni, "the most tangible factor now bearing on the total well-being of the College today."

The President's printed statement, entitled Charity Plus and distributed to all Dartmouth men by the Alumni Fund Committee, gives three reasons of "sharp selfinterest" for greater scholarship resources, entirely aside from the charitable motive of providing an education to deserving young men who lack the means to attend a college like Dartmouth. The first of these three reasons of self-interest is that liberal arts education at Dartmouth depends in large measure upon men living and working together, which in turn is dependent for its effectiveness upon a student body drawn from varying economic levels as well as from all sections of the country. Financial aid alone makes this possible. The second reason given by President Dickey is that "Dartmouth, like any other enterprise, is finally judged by its product and, as in other enterprises, the quality of a college's product cannot in the long run be better than the raw material." Scholarship aid alone will enable the College to continue to choose its raw material strictly on its merits and to enroll the best available men regardless of their financial means. And the third reason, related to the skyrocketing cost of maintaining a first-rate college today, is that the subsidy given to all students in the form of half-cost tuition fees—termed "unrealistic" by President Dickey—is no longer enough to accomplish its objective of attracting men from the marginal and lower economic levels. "That objective, I am confident," the President says, "can only be realized in the future by making open, adequate scholarship grants or loans to those who genuinely need some financial assistance while, at the same time, tuition charges are substantially increased to cover a larger share of the actual cost to the College of every man's education." Before this last large area of self-help can be utilized by the College, adequate scholarship resources must be available to forestall the serious loss of boys of marginal means, those in the lower middle economic group.

President Dickey's statement makes reference to Dartmouth's strained competitive position with regard to scholarship aid, and this too is an important factor of self-interest. In the face of increased tuition fees, which are likely to go still higher, Dartmouth is hard pressed to make the proportionately higher scholarship awards that are necessary if the College is to carry out the Trustees' decision that higher fees must not make it harder for the boy of restricted means to enter Dartmouth. The annual scholarship limit of $250,000 set by the Trustees last year will be reached in 1950-51, and this expenditure does nothing more than maintain the pre-war level of aid. Some progress has been made in the higher average scholarship grant for next fall's entering class, but the funds were not available to increase the percentage of men receiving aid. Professor Francis J. Neef, chairman of the scholarship committee, reports that there were without any question at least sixty more applicants who were wholly deserving of Dartmouth's help but who could not be included because his funds were exhausted. Many of these excellently qualified boys were the marginal cases which are a growing concern to those responsible for admission and financial aid.

Dartmouth at present is just about holding its pre-war level of providing aid for 20 per cent of its undergraduates. The goal of the College is to improve this record percentage-wise and at the same time to increase the amounts of individual grants. In both respects Dartmouth has lost ground competitively to other colleges in its group. The scholarship problem exists for all the independent colleges, and in facing it a number of the Ivy League colleges, for example, have adopted praiseworthy programs and have managed to increase greatly the funds available for scholarship aid. Harvard's national scholarships, some providing for total college costs including travel, have been a model for attracting first-rate students regardless of their ability to pay. Similar programs on a national scale have been put into effect by Yale, Princeton, Cornell and Columbia. In some of these institutions the percentage of entering freshmen granted financial aid has exceeded 30 per cent, and the total amounts budgeted for such help have been tremendously enlarged.

In Dartmouth's case, more than half of the money alloted to financial aid must come out of general funds, badly needed for raising faculty salaries and for other pressing needs. It is for this reason that the Development Council is working especially hard to obtain scholarship endowment funds. Toward this goal the most encouraging chievement so far is the growing number of such funds being established by Dartmouth alumni clubs and associations throughout the country. The development of this program of alumni club and associa- tion scholarship endowment funds is being directed by James M. Mathes '11 of New York, who presided over the Hanover meeting of fund chairmen May 12, when the plan was formally launched. Not only because of what it means to the well-being of the College but also because of what it will provide for the clubs in the way of a major, continuing activity, this program holds great promise and affords perhaps the most encouraging note of the present time.

For the rest of the answer, the Development Council must keep on working incessantly to obtain gifts and bequests of all sizes for the endowing of scholarships. Meanwhile, the Alumni Fund is counted upon heavily to carry some of the scholarship load and to make possible, without damaging delay, some steps forward toward the goal of the strongest possible student body, democratic, diversified, and composed of men enjoying the opportunities of Dartmouth not because they are able to pay for them but because they merit them.

DAVID C. BULL '50 PRESIDES OVER THE INDUCTION OF PALAEOPITUS AT THE OLD PINE