The Weather MIT’s Today: Mostly cloudy, High 51°F (11°C) Tonight: Light rain, Low 37°F (3°C) Oldest and Largest Tomorrow: Light rain in the morning, Newspaper High 43°F (6°C) Details, Page 2 Volume 128, Number 12 Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 Friday, March 14, 2008 Most Undergrads Pay Less Tuition Despite Increases, MIT Says By Elijah Jordan Turner ratory space. STAFF REPORTER According to the report, 90 per- What should you make of MIT’s cent of students received some form voluminous response to the Senate of financial aid, either from MIT Finance Committee, which asked it or from other sources, in 2006–7. to explain exorbitant tuition costs Barkowitz said that 42 percent of in light of a sixth-in-the-nation en- students did not receive grants from dowment? MIT last year. MIT’s response makes three The Institute’s endowment, things very clear: first, the endow- which totaled nearly $10 billion in ment has tripled in the past ten the past fiscal year, is ranked sixth years; second, tuition has increased in the country, behind Harvard, by nearly 50 percent; and finally, the Yale, Stanford, the University of average student pays less to attend Texas system, and Princeton. The SHREYES Seshasai—The TECH MIT than he did ten years ago. endowment’s value has nearly tri- Upperclassmen help freshmen explore their options at the Choice of Major Study Break in Next Over the past ten years, tuition pled in ten years; it was just under Dining on Thursday night. The event, organized by Next House RBA (Residence-Based Advising), has increased by an average of just $3.7 billion in 1998. allowed freshmen to talk with upperclassmen from departments in which they were interested. For over four percent each year. Tuition Some of the rapid increase in the more information, visit http://web.mit.edu/firstyear/2011/choiceofmajor/. for the 1998–9 term cost $24,050; endowment comes from donations for 2008–9, it will be $36,390. — over the past ten years, MIT has Even though tuition has in- received about $650 million in do- creased by each year, in recent nations to the endowment, accord- UROP Proposal System Moves to years, students have paid less to at- ing to the report. The rest comes tend MIT. The average amount paid from investment returns and other has decreased by 15 percent over sources. Web for All Students by Summer ten years when adjusted for infla- Senator Charles E. Grassley, R- tion, according to the report, which Iowa, the ranking member of the By Angeline Wang UROP coordinators. her contact with her faculty supervi- is available online at http://tech.mit. Senate Finance Committee, sug- CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Because the approval process sor but that “really depends on the edu/V128/N12/senate/. gested in January that the Senate In many departments, UROP can now be done remotely, it will be student.” “One of the reasons why a But tuition does not complete- might require universities to spend research proposals can now be especially helpful for students and lot of students want to do a UROP is ly cover the cost of MIT: Daniel a minimum amount of their endow- submitted online by students faculty who may be unable to meet to get that exposure to a professor,” Barkowitz, director of student fi- ments each year in order to reduce and approved online by fac- in person, Associate Dean Michael Sher said. nancial aid, said that educating an students’ financial burdens. MIT ulty and UROP coordinators. Bergren said. The new online system is being undergraduate costs about twice as has spent about five percent of its This change to an online system Christina J. Sher ’08, who has rolled out in phases and should be much as tuition. endowment each year since 1998. from a paper process, which has been a Course XVI UROP, used the new in place for all departments by the “The true cost of providing an used since UROP began in 1969, is system this semester and said it was summer, according to UROP Pro- MIT education to our students - The Senate’s request intended to make the proposal pro- “much more efficient.” “Usually, it’s gram Coordinator Melissa J. Martin- 85% of whom study science or In January, the Senate Finance cess easier. Previously, undergradu- really inconvenient for me to try to Greene. The system was piloted in engineering - significantly exceeds Committee sent terse letters to ates applying for UROPs had to schedule a time for the signature,” January for several departments and the tuition revenue we receive,” America’s 136 richest colleges ask- submit hard copy cover sheets and Sher said. was expanded to additional depart- says the report to the Senate. For ing eleven questions about the ris- proposals and obtain signatures from Sher said she was not worried example, science and engineering faculty supervisors and departmental that the new system would lessen UROP, Page 11 educations require expensive labo- Senate, Page 11 Report Urges New Focus Joseph Weizenbaum MIT NEWS OFFICE On Math, Problem Solving Joseph Weizenbaum, professor emeritus of computer science at MIT who grew skeptical of artificial intelli- gence after creating a program that made many users feel like they were speaking with an empathic psychologist, died March 5 in Berlin. He was 85. In U.S. Education System Weizenbaum, who was Jewish, fled Nazi Germany with his parents and arrived in the United States in the mid- By Tamar Lewin work begins,” said the report of the 1930s. At the beginning of his career with computers, in the early 1950s, he worked on analog computers; later, he THE NEW YORK TIMES National Mathematics Advisory helped design and build a digital computer at Wayne University in Detroit, Mich. American students’ math Panel, appointed two years ago by In 1955, Weizenbaum became a member of the General Electric team that designed and built the first computer achievement is “at a mediocre President Bush. “Students who system dedicated to banking operations. Among his early technical contributions were the list processing system level” compared with that of their complete Algebra II are more than peers worldwide, according to a twice as likely to graduate from col- Weizenbaum, Page 11 new report by a federal panel, which lege compared to students with less recommended that schools focus on mathematical preparation.” key skills that prepare students to The report, adopted unanimous- learn algebra. ly by the panel on Thursday and “The sharp falloff in math- presented to Education Secretary ematics achievement in the United Margaret Spellings, said that pre- States begins as students reach late kindergarten-to-eighth-grade math middle school, where, for more and more students, algebra course Math Education, Page 12 In Short ¶ A memorial service for Robert is currently being piloted on the M. Wells ’08 will be held tomor- Boston Daytime Shuttle and can row at 2 p.m. in the MIT Chapel. be viewed at http://www.nextbus. com/. ¶ The ShuttleTrack system will be replaced by a service provid- Send news information and tips to ed by NextBus. Shuttle tracking [email protected]. NEWS World & Nation . 2 A bloodless diabetes Opinion . 4 monitor passes a key test Campus Life . 5 Page 14 Fun . 6 ERIC Schmiedl—The TECH Shaunalynn M. Duffy ’09 and Samuel E. Kronick ’10 lurch down the Infinite Corridor as part of a Arts . 8 group of zombies on the last leg of a campus tour they were giving to Center for Advanced Visual Sports . 16 Studies artist Jenny Romaine. Page 2 THE TECH March 14, 2008 WORLD & NATIO N Trader Tells Prosecutors Policymakers Propose Boss Saw Illicit Deal By Nicola Clark THE NEW YORK TIMES PARIS Stronger Mortgage Rules Jerome Kerviel, the former trader at the bank Societe Generale, has told French investigators that an assistant on his desk conducted By Edmund L. Andrews secretary, the chairman of the Fed- investors around the world. at least one large fictitious transaction last spring on their boss’ com- THE NEW YORK TIMES eral Reserve and the government’s Paulson took particular aim puter — as the boss looked on, according to a court document obtained WASHINGTON top financial regulators. at credit-rating agencies, such as Thursday by The International Herald Tribune. The nation’s top economic poli- Paulson said the government was Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and The testimony was an indication that Kerviel was continuing to cymakers, hoping to prevent a repeat going to demand greater “transpar- Fitch, which gave Triple-A ratings press his claim that his superiors knew that he was amassing trades that of the excesses that led to the mort- ency” from banks and Wall Street to billions of dollars in mortgage- the bank later blamed for losses of nearly 5 billion euros ($7.1 billion). gage bubble and bust, on Thursday firms, stronger risk management backed securities that turned out to But according to the document, the supervisor, Eric Cordelle, proposed a broad series of reforms and capital management and a better be filled with delinquent loans. denied Kerviel’s assertions in a hearing with investigating judges on aimed at tightening oversight of fi- trading system for complex finan- Paulson said the rating agencies March 6, saying that he did not even have the necessary software on nancial institutions. cial derivatives, such as collateral- would have enforce policies about his computer, the document shows. The changes include tougher ized debt obligations, that managed disclosing their conflicts of inter- On a second occasion, however, Cordelle admitted that he had wit- disclosure requirements for banks to transform risky subprime mort- est, an allusion to criticisms that nessed Kerviel entering trades on the computer of a trainee and even and Wall Street firms, a nationwide gages into securities with Triple-A the agencies were typically paid confronted him.