THE LEHMAN SQUEEZER

One of the recently discovered dodges by which the busy accounting machines of Lehman Hall are enabled to place worthy graduate students excessively in the red in the queer system of charges made to men enrolled in one School who take courses in a second. Under present conditions a man enrolled in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, tuition of which is $400 for four courses, is able to take half of his work in the Business School, for example, and still keep himself on the enrollment list of the Graduate School. If, then, he takes two of his courses in the Business School, he gets two $150 courses at the cut rate of $100 each. Tuition across the Charles is $600, which amounts to $150 per course, in comparison with $100 per course in the Graduate School.

It is not the purpose of this inquiry to ask why it is that the study of high finance should be an expensive one. The point to be stressed is that the same courses should cost all the students enrolled the same amount.

While the man enrolled in the Graduate School wears a contented $100 smile as he seats himself in a Business School course in Marketing beside a bona fide $150 student of Business Administration, the same is true of the $300 tuitioned, $75 per course men enrolled in the Graduate School of Education, who take two courses, or half of their work, in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. The interesting thing, moreover, is that if at some time later one of the students in the School of Education wishes to transfer to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, he cannot count towards his Graduate School degree any of the courses in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences which he took while enrolled in the School of Education, and which consequently cost him but $75 each. "Our degree must represent $400 worth of courses" recently remarked an official of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

Financing of this exchange of students is done by mutual agreement of the Deans concerned. When an engineering student takes a course at the Business School, the charge goes to the Engineering School account, debiting it $50, the difference between the Business School course charge and that of the Engineering School. It is therefore necessary for the Engineering School officers to wish into the School of Education two men to take one course each, thus crediting the Engineering School with $50, $25 for each course.

Lehman Hall officials register little emotion at the records of this traffic in Graduate School Students. The cost to the individual men, of course, does not enter into their considerations. In the long run it is shown that the balance of trade in graduate school students equalizes itself between the various schools.

To end this unsavory practice it is necessary to set a flat rate for courses in the various Schools, to charge all students the same amount. Otherwise, although the Schools themselves do not suffer, courses may be costing students several prices. These may redden the ledger, while from above the doors of Lehman Hall gleams the motto:

"Let ignorance talk as-it-will,

Learning has its value."