Privation & Co-operation

Lugubrious news was presented to the Pennsylvania State Education Association last week by Dean Romeyn Henry Rivenburg of Bucknell University. A questionnaire he sent to 65 Pennsylvania colleges and universities revealed that many a student is commuting long distances in a cheap automobile; cooking his own meals; living in poor lodgings; mortgaging his future by borrowing money; combining with others in buying books, or buying none at all. "There are too many men," said Dean Rivenburg. "who are trying to live from week to week. They have a pint of milk and a slice of bread for breakfast and one meal a day."

Similarly last month spoke Joseph Aidrich Bursley, dean of students at the University of Michigan. Said he: "Every few days there comes to my office the report of some student who is living in an attic on $1.50 a week, on milk and bread or crackers, with an occasional can of beans. . . . It would be better if they would stay out a year with the hope of earning enough to support themselves decently in school at some future date."

Currently increasing in popularity as a means of reducing college expenses are co-operative eating and rooming houses. Last week both the University of Michigan and the University of Wisconsin reported on what their students are doing. The Michigan Co-operative Boarding House has 145 members who pay $2.90 a week for 20 meals (only two on Sunday). There are two rooming houses, at $2 and $2.50 a week. Wisconsin has two lodging and eating houses, is opening a third. Average daily living cost is less than $1. In all these, most of the work is done by students. The University of Nebraska College of Agriculture has a cooperative. Last week Nebraska reported that two students, by cooking their own beef stew in large batches and baking their own bread, were feeding themselves for $3 a month apiece. Northwestern University, Wellesley, Smith. Mount Holyoke and M. I. T. have well-established houses. In a recent survey of college co-operatives by the Harmon Foundation. 113 out of 451 institutions replying had some such enterprise.

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