Author: By Beth Daley, Doreen Iudica Vigue and Kate Zernike, Globe Staff

Date: TUESDAY, February 23, 1999

Page: B2

Section: Metro

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With two new announcements in the past week, it's now a certified wave of top-flight universities stepping up their financial aid programs to try to appeal to more middle-class students. Brown University announced its new plan over the weekend, and Harvard University announced that it would extend its increased financial aid to graduate students.

The $5 million plan at Brown will begin with students starting at the school this fall, and offer a minimum $1,000 scholarship to those who qualify for financial aid.

Over four years, those students with the greatest need will see an additional $17,000 in grants (read: money that doesn't have to be paid back). And compared to students now receiving financial aid, new students will see a 70 percent reduction in the loan portion of their financial aid (read: the portion that has to be paid back, with interest.) Ultimately, students will have an estimated $7,000 in student loan debt on graduation, school officials said. Previous classes of Brown students have received most of their financial aid in loans. New students can also count the minimum scholarship toward the so-called self-help portion of their financial aid package, meaning they will have to do fewer campus work hours (students who receive financial aid are often required to hold jobs to contribute to the price of their tuition.) Approximately 4 percent of the new class will benefit from those grants. The new policy will cost Brown an additional $2 million in the first year, and ultimately, $5 million a year, for a total 53 percent rise in the financial aid budget over the next five years, to $41 million.

Harvard will increase its financial aid for graduate students by approximately $5.7 million per year, a 25 percent increase in the university's graduate student financial aid budget. Admitted students will also receive aid packages for up to five years. Previously, those students were told only how much aid they would get for two years upon admission. This follows Harvard's announcement last fall that it would increase undergraduate financial aid by $9 million a year.

The wave began at Princeton last year, and has prompted more generous financial aid packages to be announced at Yale, Dartmouth, and Wellesley. Amherst College is expected to announce a similar increase soon. Like other schools, Brown expects to pay for the increase from its endowment. About 37 percent of Brown students now receive some financial aid.

With that in mind, Kaplan Educational Centers announced last week that it had named noted Harvard Law professor Arthur R. Miller to the board of faculty advisers for Concord University School of Law, the first distance-learning law school in the nation.

Miller, the author of dozens of books on court procedure, will also deliver lectures in the school's second year course on civil procedure, as well as a third-year elective. Concord also announced that its students have been given access to Westlaw, a database system that gives lawyers access to cases, statutes, and other public records.

The two announcements were aimed at getting accreditation from the American Bar Association, whose guidelines do not allow lawyers to receive training from on-line programs -- largely because the guidelines require schools to have physical libraries and other more traditional features. So the law school, it was announced last fall, is offering courses, but those who take them can't practice law according to the ABA guidelines.

"This [announcement] obviously shows that we are a viable, high quality educational alternative," said Andrea Wilson, a spokeswoman for Kaplan. "We're hoping the ABA will be persuaded to rethink some of those guidelines."

Concord has received provisional approval to offer degrees in California, from that state's accreditation agency. Still, however, the ABA does not recognize that accreditation.

As for Miller, this won't be the first time he's been beamed into thousands of homes. He appeared regularly as a legal talking head on "Good Morning America" for 19 years.

While administrators at Duke and Georgetown allowed students to occupy the president's office (as long as they cleaned up after themselves), students who tried to deliver a letter requesting changes in Harvard's policy on sweatshop labor to President Neil Rudenstine said they were locked out and met with stern security guards. "We weren't even trying to take over the office," said student leader Dan Hennefeld.

Harvard spokesman Joe Wrinn says the students weren't locked out. It's standard procedure for the doors to be locked when there is an organized demonstration going on outside the president's office, and anyway, Rudenstine wasn't in his office. (The university also says it has the same goals as the students, but it wants to make sure that the agreement it signs with the garment manufacturers is enforceable.)

Harvard and Boston College each hosted forums yesterdaywith former US Labor Secretary (and current Brandeis professor) Robert Reich, workers from a factory in Guatemala that was shut down after the workers formed a union, and other labor leaders. Last week, Harvard and Boston University students held demonstrations demanding fair wages for sweatshop workers and disclosure of factory locations. Brown and Princeton are expected to announce this week that they have agreed to those demands, which were also made by students on those campuses.

Duke, Georgetown, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Boston College are among the schools that have signed a national code of conduct guiding manufacturers treatment of workers -- most in foreign factories -- who make the ubiquitous logo-adorned sweatshirts, hats, and other campus gear.

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