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Brewster is aware that bold endowment use and tough cost accounting will not solve Yale's long-run problems nor those of other private colleges. In speeches across the U.S., he has been advocating a revolutionary way out. He would have all colleges charge students almost the full cost of educating them, which for Yale currently means $5,520 per year. Students would borrow that amount, plus room and board charges, from the Federal Government and repay it throughout their lifetimes with an annual surcharge on their income taxes. The higher amount paid by those who earn more and live longer would offset those who are ill-paid or who die young. "It would not be resorted to except by those who needed it," Brewster explains, "and it would not cost more over the span of a generation than the society receives for its investment."
The plan intrigues some educators as a way to shift educational costs from hard-pressed parents to the generation that benefits. President Howard Johnson of M.I.T. calls it a "refreshing" approach but considers the lifetime debt "psychologically difficult," prefers some form of earlier payback. The Ford Foundation's Marshall Robinson frets about the threat of a "reverse dowry," when a woman graduate of Vassar or Smith presents a lifetime tax bill to her husband.
Efficiency & Self-Restraint. Whether or not they agree with Brewster's concept of loans for learning, college administrators desperately need to find new ways to stay solvent. There are some obvious possibilities. For one, colleges could easily become more efficient by better use of existing facilities and faculties, judicious expansion of student-teacher ratios, more independent study, televised lectures and programmed instruction. Despite a proliferation of intercollege "consortiums," there are still countless opportunities for more cash-saving cooperation. Simple self-restraint is also sorely needed; the small liberal arts colleges need not try to become second-rate universities. The field of private philanthropy is still largely an untapped reservoir: only 23% of college graduates give to their alma mater; only 600 of the nation's 5,000 large companies give significantly.
Most private-college presidents candidly conclude, however, that the long-range answer is massive federal help. "The only place the money can come from is the Federal Government—that's inevitable," says Harvard President Nathan Pusey. Even the small colleges, concedes Mills President C. Easton Rothwell, "have passed the point of no return in their acceptance and dependence upon support from federal agencies." The only real argument about federal aid is how to get it without violating what Cornell's Perkins calls "our academic virginity"—an infringement of