McGaw also said he was concerned by the administration’s “lack of transparency” on the LRAP issue. “Decisions were made without informing the elected student representatives.”

Tim Sultan, a mid-career student who is president of the Kennedy School Student Government, wrote in an e-mail yesterday that “if students had been involved earlier in the process, we would have shared our priorities with the dean before the changes had been made and there would have been no need for a protest.”

According to McGaw, last fall Nye quietly ended a KSG policy that gave aid to graduates who join the Presidential Management Fellows (PMF) program, a federal initiative.

Through a rigorous nationwide selection process, the PMF program selects graduate students for paid federal posts. The two-year program pays fellows an annual salary of approximately $40,000, McGaw said.

McGaw, who worked as a public affairs officer in the Clinton White House, has been selected for the PMF program.

“The Kennedy School promised loan forgiveness to students who pursued this program. My class…had that taken away from us,” McGaw said. “The administration has cut funding that is specifically-geared for the PMF program and moved PMF into the general pool for LRAP funding. So you have more people who need assistance and still have less funding.”

‘A VALUABLE FIRST STEP’

Sultan said Nye’s decision Thursday to exempt current students and alumni from new LRAP eligibility caps “is a valuable first step.”

“We all thank Dean Nye for his leadership in making this possible,” Sultan said.

But Sultan said that alleviating the financial burden on students who take public sector jobs also requires a commitment from Mass Hall.

In January 2003, University President Lawrence H. Summers announced a $14 million initiative through which the University will dole out grants to graduate students who pursue careers in public service or research.

Summers also unveiled the Harvard Educational Loan Program (HELP), a partnership with Citibank that offers students loans at a below-market rate of 4.1 percent.

“President Summers has provided an extensive opportunity now to take on low-interest loans. That’s great,” McGaw said.

But he cautioned that the initiative was far from a long-term solution.

“If we can’t afford to pay the loans the back, what’s the good of giving us the loans in the first place?” McGaw said.

—Staff writer Daniel J. Hemel can be reaches at hemel@fas.harvard.edu.