Rent Scale Wider On House Blanks Delivered to '55

Housing Office secretaries await the annual paper-work deluge. Janitors are delivering Yardling application blanks today that must be filled out with the usual information about House, suite, and roommate preference and returned in person to Weld Hall 8 by April 10.

"To protect men who need cheap rooms and lessen the gaps between room prices." Associate Dean Watson, supervisor of the Housing Office, decided to enlarge the room pricing scale. He also lowered the minimum at which men must file financial statements from $100 to $165.

All men who state their preference at below $165 per term must fill in a form at Weld 8. In order to more nearly correspond to actual room prices, the categories range in $10 jumps from $85 to $300. Last year, there were eight levels from $110 to $300.

Upperclassmen living in the Houses will receive official notification of their room assignments today. Non-resident House members filed applications February 27 and will also be notified today.

House application blanks seem to run in cycles, as far as room pricing systems go. In 1931 the categories stretched right across the blank--from $100 to $620 in $20 increases. This proved cumbersome and was discontinued the next year, when men were asked only to name their preferred price. In 1933 the room prices were reduced $36 and in 1934 a $180 minimum was instituted.

Six years later freshmen were asked what they could reasonably carry for the whole time that they are in the Houses. The draft was taking effect. Maximum and minimum preferences were introduced in 1943 with eight "groups" listed as the category system returned.

The brackets were then reduced to five with price increases in 1946, '47, and '48. Today's 17 categories continues the trend back to 1931.