Harvard Law School Plans Hike in Students' Tuition

Some Harvard Law School students are angry with the Dean of the Law School Robert C. Clark over a proposed tuition hike, planned to offset the school's $1.2 million deficit.

The proposed plans call for an eight percent tuition increase, designed to help reduce the deficit. Law School officials said the plans will be made official next week.

During a special meeting with Clark to discuss the increase in tuition, some of the students lashed out at the planned hike. They said they felt it was unfair because 60 percent of funding for the Law School comes directly from tuitions, students said.

Thomas J. Samuelian, a member of the Law School Council, told the dean that the school depends too much on tuitions as a money-source and too little on traditional fund raising methods, according to students Thomas R. Wilson and John C. Buckley who attended the meeting.

Clark steadfastly disagreed with this argument, citing his rash of succesful fund raising trips and his campaign for twelve endowed faculty chairs: Recently, he has helped to create four such chairs.

Clark also suggested a surcharge on the tuitionto help reduce the mounting deficit. The studentspresented unanimous opposition to such a proposal,students said.

For many years, the Law School dean has metwith selected student leaders to assess reactionsto proposed changes in tuition.

Students present at the meeting had differentopinions on what part they actually play in thetuition process.

President of the Board of Student Advisers(BSA) Paul E. Veith said he sympathized withClark.

"He has a tough job," said Veith. "I wassatisfied with his explanations and I suppose hejust wanted some feedback."

Yet Veith also said he suspected that Clark hadanother reason for holding the meeting.

"I don't think he really expected to get awhole lot out of it," said Veith. He said that itis possible the dean used the discussion to"shield himself from criticism" from students