NO ROOMS FOR RENT

One of the major problems facing the young, married, Harvard instructor is where to live. The problem arises from the fact that the salary of the junior teachers is, in many cases, insufficient to support a wife and family in a decent style in Cambridge. In their recent report The Committee of Eight stated: "the unsatisfactory housing and schooling conditions in Cambridge now tempt young teachers with relatively small salaries to live elsewhere or to add to their incomes by doing outside work which interferes with their scholarly pursuits."

The young, married instructor finds it, hard to make both ends meet for two reasons. First, there is a shortage of good housing facilities at a low enough price. A minimum, decent, family apartment in Cambridge costs at least eighty dollars a month. Then, second, because of the poor Cambridge school system, teachers are forced to pay tuition for their children at private schools. This costs anywhere from one hundred and fifty to five hundred dollars per year, depending on the age of the children. Therefore, some way must be found to reduce rents or educational costs in order to enable an instructor on a salary of twenty-five hundred dollars to live in a decent fashion.

The logical thing is to reduce rents. This could be most easily done by the University's building of a housing settlement for instructors on the vacant land across the river next to the Business School. At present this land is lying idle; at the same time the University is complaining that it cannot get a large enough return on its investments. If it were to build such a project and to charge rents low enough to minimize the cost to the instructor of educating his children, even were the land not to be tax-free, the University still would get over a six per cent annual return on its investment, thereby raising its annual income.

Such a solution is most satisfactory to all concerned. From the student's point of view it would be ideal if he could readily contact his tutor or section-man. From the instructor's point of view it is very worth-while for him to be close to the libraries and laboratories which the University has to offer. And from the University's point of view, it is desirable that its younger teachers take a larger part in its cultural activities, as well as reside in closer proximity to the University. In essence this housing plan is the logical extension of the House Plan, and it is a very desirable extension at that.