Today we have an excerpt from an official Harvard publication from 1908 that was printed to provide information for prospective and entering students regarding the financial side of attending Harvard. The 85 page pamphlet is primarily dedicated to undergraduate college costs, but this post has been limited to four budgets for graduate students.
A back-of-envelope splicing of cost-of-living indexes generates a factor of about 25 for converting the dollar figures from the early twentieth century into present dollars*. So for quick comparison:
Harvard tuition then of $150/year translates into about $3,750/year today–we have a poster-child for Baumol’s cost disease.
Room (and we are literally talking only a room) then a rent of $10/month corresponds to $250/month today.
Boarding costs of $8/month converts to $80/month today, and that is before the introduction of ramen noodles into the graduate student diet.
*Source: Indexes from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis data at the FRED website.
According to a cost-of-living index for Massachusetts (1910-1943) from the NBER, the cost-of-living rose from 96.1 (Jan 1910) to 164.7 (Dec 1943), a 171% increase.
The Consumer Price Index for all urban consumers, Dec 1943 17.4 to Feb. 2018 248.991, a 1431% increase.
______________________
My dear Sir : —
When I came to Harvard last year — in the fall of 1906 — I was able to count on receiving $25 a month from my father. I anticipated an expense for the year of about $500, so borrowed $250 to bring my assets up to this figure. I believed that the work during the first year in the Graduate School would be sufficiently exacting to make it worth while to borrow the money rather than to try, by outside work, to earn my living expenses. I found that my estimate of $500 was not far astray. My account-book shows the following items for the year 1906-07:—
| Tuition | $150 |
| Room (furnished, in private house) | 80 |
| Board | 150 |
| Books | 65 |
| Laundry | 20 |
| Incidentals | 60 |
| $525 |
I lived economically, but was never forced to cut down my board allowance, and finished the year in good shape physically.
During the current year, I have lived in a College dormitory, occupying half a room, which rents for $150. My expenses will be about the same this year as last. I am able to show a balance on the other side of the book at present, however. A University Scholarship balances the tuition; and a position teaching about eight hours a week in Boston pays $400, so at present I am just about “keeping even with the game” without having to borrow money or to draw on my father.
Very truly yours.
______________________
Dear Sir : —
Your letter with reference to the expenses of a Graduate Student was duly received. I hope I am not too late in making the following reply: —
I am one of the married students of the Graduate School, and my wife (we have no children) lived with me in Cambridge. I received no income from the College, and did no tutoring or teaching, but devoted my entire time to the several courses in which I was registered. I kept no detailed account of expenses, but from the records of my cheque-book I can give a fairly accurate estimate of the expenditures for the year 1903-04.
| Rent (two rooms) | $140.00 | Medical treatment | $5.00 |
| Board for two (forty weeks) | 400.00 | Typewriter (Blickensderfer) | 50.00 |
| Tuition and laboratory fees | 160.00 | Concerts and theatre | 5.50 |
| Graduation fee (A.M.) | 20.00 | Miscellaneous expenses | 100.00 |
| Books | 15.00 | $895.50 |
This year we are keeping house. The rent of rooms is greater ($200 instead of $140). This we understand is an average rate for married students who are keeping house, usually in two rooms. The cost of food for us both thus far averages about $3 to $3.25 per week (we are keeping careful accounts this year). Laundry for us both averages about eighty cents per week; clothes are partly rough dry. Fuel (for cooking only) and light amount to forty-seven cents per week. At the present rate our expenses for this year promise to be considerably less than those of last year.
Very truly yours,
______________________
Dear Sir : —
I was not able to finish my answer to your request before now owing to various reasons. I sincerely hope it is not altogether too late.
It would be of little service for me to tabulate my income, for it would need very copious notes to explain it adequately. I give below a table of expenses, and a few hints that I should like to make to any one entering upon his first year in the Graduate School.
|
October to July |
|||
|
1902-03 |
1903-04 |
1904-05 |
|
| Tuition | $150.00 | $150.00 | $150.00 |
| Room | 100.00 | 100.00 | 100.00 |
| Room incidentals (coal, gas, etc.)* | … | … | 10.00 |
| Board | 75.00 | 80.00 | 80.00 |
| Railroad fare | 30.00 | 30.00 | 30.00 |
| Clothing** | 75.00 | 75.00 | 60.00 |
| Tobacco | … | … | … |
| Books | 50.00 | 50.00 | 50.00 |
| Clubs, Harvard Union, etc. | 5.00 | 15.00 | 15.00 |
| Incidentals | 65.00 | 60.00 | 62.50 |
| $550.00 | $560.00 | $500.00 | |
*Included in room-rent for 1902-03 and 1903-04, but charged separately at my present quarters.
**Exclusive of underclothing, but including caps, hats, and shoes.
It is not wise for you to pay too much heed to the reports of very high or very low rates of living in Cambridge. I have made a rough estimate of my expenses each year during the three College years that I have spent or will spend here, and it will be very easy for you to add or subtract items thereto until you can arrive at some idea of what you can expect to have to meet yourself. The tuition charge is fixed. Your room-rent rests entirely with what you are willing to pay, although I should not advise you to take any single room that rents for less than sixty dollars, or a double one for less than one hundred. Your board bill will be higher than mine, for you live further away from Cambridge than Providence, and consequently you may miss going home as often as I do. You will also probably spend more upon your meals for a similar reason, since not having the “home food” to vary your diet you will have to seek variety from the Randall Hall or Memorial Hall menu, and such variety costs more. The first year I was here I averaged about forty-two cents a day at Randall Hall, and the second year about sixty-five. You can get along very well indeed at fifty cents a day, three dollars and a half a week, boarding either at Randall or Memorial. I know of men who averaged less than two dollars weekly. It is possible, but I doubt the wisdom of it.
You do not use tobacco, so you will save in that direction, as I do. Your clothing need not be any more costly than mine, save possibly that you might add the price of an overcoat or some other article, the need for which might arise this next year rather than later. I cannot tell what my underclothing has cost me. Fifty dollars is a very liberal estimate for books. You ought to do much better if you patronize the second-hand stalls at the book stores and watch for bargains. You should belong to the Graduate Club ($3) at any rate, and the Harvard Union ($10), if you can possibly arrange it. Under incidentals I have estimated street-car fares, theatres and amusements, drinks, candy, pictures and ornaments, and the host of small expenses which make so large a total if they are not watched.
I can tell you little in regard to earning money here during the year. Tutoring, reporting for newspapers, canvassing, and other things of the kind, you can get something out of — more later than in the first year here. I have not tried to do much save during the summer months, when, as you know, I was assayer for gold and silver, teamster, messenger, canvasser, census enumerator, gas-meter surveyor, and other things. They all paid, especially the first, which was a very good position. You can take your choice of the others. With my scholarship and with some private income I have worked along. I shouldn’t advise you to count very much on making money in Cambridge, at least not in the first year. Any further information I can give I shall be glad to furnish.
Sincerely yours,
______________________
[…budget of an undergraduate skipped…]
______________________
Dear Sir : —
The enclosed table of figures indicates the exact expense to me during the year of 1903-04 spent in graduate work at Harvard University. When entering the University in the fall of 1903 no income other than the $150 in scholarship was in sight. I succeeded in borrowing small amounts from two friends which I used until the payment of the scholarship was due. At the beginning of the second half-year I found it possible to accept assistantships in two courses, and with such aid I completed the year. Although opportunities for tutoring came, I preferred to work in other ways, so that my tutoring work was very small.
As from my experience at College I should advise the high school graduate to overcome the apparent obstacle of the lack of money and start out for college, so from my experience in the graduate work in the University I should advise the man who can make a start but hesitates because he does not see the full way clear, to begin, and he must surely find ways opening up whereby he will be enabled to continue his work.
Very truly yours.
|
Academic Year 1903-04 |
|||
|
Expenses |
Sources of Income |
||
| Tuition | $150 | Scholarship | $150.00 |
| Room | 100.00 | Teaching in the University | 160.00 |
| Board at Randall Hall | 76.38 | Loan from friend | 125.00 |
| Travelling expenses | 52.00 | Loan from friend | 60.00 |
| Clothing | 35.00 | $495.00 | |
| Books and science material | 20.00 | ||
| Degree of A.M. | 20.00 | ||
| Laundry | 10.00 | ||
| Laboratory fees | 15.00 | ||
| $478.38 | |||
Source: Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Students’ Expenses and College Aids with a Collection of Letters from Undergraduate and Graduate Students Describing in Detail Their Necessary Expenses at Harvard. Cambridge, Mass. (1908), pp. 75-77, 79.
Image Source: Harvard University Archives. A student’s room at 35 Randolph Hall, 45-47 Bow Street, Cambridge. Harvard, ca, 1898.