Student Financial Aid Funds Here Face $200,000 Cut by Government

Harvard students will probably receive less money next year from Federal loan, grant, and work study programs.

Peter K. Gunness '57, director of the Financial Aid Office, said yesterday that Federal funds given to Harvard as National Defense Education Act loans, Educational Opportunity grants, and the work-study payments are likeely to be cut by about $200,000 from this year's total of $1,6 million.

Gunness recently returned from Washington, D.C., where he conferred with officials of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare on the Federal aid program. Funds for these programs were sliced in the economy-minded budget for fiscal 1970 submitted by the outgoing Johnson Administration.

Alternate Sources

Though they may place a strain on the University's budget, the decreases in Federal aid are not likely to affect students here greatly, Gunness said. "We'll find alternative sources of funds. "We'll work it out somehow," he said.

The largest cut will come in the NDEA loan program, he said, predicting that Harvard's share of these funds will be decreased by about $200,000 from this year's total of $1 million. The work study and opportunity grant money Harvard students receive will probably remain just about at this year's levels of $400,000 and $200,000 respectively, Gunness said.

Harvard had requested increases in it funds under all three programs.

Other colleges with financial resources more limited than Harvard's will be harder hit by the general reduction in Federal aid to students. "The state, the small community college has taken the greatest risk [in recruiting disadvantaged students]," Gunness said.