When it comes to his ultimate objectives, Roberts still talks a very good game. “We want the highest-paid faculty in America. Our only interest is that teachers do a good job teaching. There’s no publish or perish at Parsons.

“You can’t educate people just with buildings,” he adds—and he doesn’t try. Parsons went from 212 students to 2,200 before he added a single new classroom. Although Roberts says he plows back every penny of profit into expansion, what matters most today when adding to the plant is the cost per square foot. If esthetics and economy conflict, the policy has always been to go with the mostest for the leastest.

Fiscal toughness characterizes all of Roberts’ works. Parsons runs on the trimester system and charges $1,650 tuition for the three semesters. But by planning and cutting corners Roberts has now brought matters to the point where the actual educational cost to the college is $1,225 for three full terms. In short, almost anything the college gets for a summer term is gravy. To capitalize on this Roberts introduced an ingenious give-away program. Students are offered a full tuition scholarship of $600 during summer semester if they have maintained a C average. Dullards who can manage only D get $250. The students, of course, still have to pay the standard room and board charges. And on this Parsons makes a 40% profit.

There’s still another angle to the trimester plan. Right now Parsons has 7,500 applications in hand for next year. About 1,200 will be admitted in the fall. “To the next 1,200,” Roberts explains, “we say, ‘We can’t take you in the fall, But if you’ll come in June, we’ll take you.’” Since for most male applicants the choice is Parsons or the draft, Parsons today runs at 87% of capacity in the summer.

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