Creeping Tuition

It’s easy to complain about the 4.9 percent tuition hike for Harvard undergraduates announced last Thursday. None of us (or our parents) are particularly excited about paying $1,681 more next year, especially with our $18.3 billion endowment far exceeding that of any other school in the nation.

Despite these understandable grumblings, tuition will inevitably rise as the University expands and improves undergraduate education in addition to keeping pace with inflation. We may not enjoy paying more every year, but we do enjoy more freshman seminars, a larger Faculty and expanded financial aid—the administration’s well-publicized selling points. Nevertheless, the University has a history of raising the financial burden on undergraduates without a commensurate rise in the quality of their educational experience; this year’s hike is symptomatic of a larger problem.

One generation ago, Harvard graduates paid less than half of the tuition we will be expected to produce when term bills are mailed out this summer. In 1982, tuition was $6,930, which comes out to $12,720 in inflation-adjusted 2002 dollars. Next year, we will pay $25,954 in tuition alone. During this same period, the inflation-adjusted endowment climbed more than six-fold, from just under $3 billion in 1982 ($1.6 billion before inflation) to $18.3 billion today. Although Harvard is certainly not alone in tuition hikes far outpacing inflation—many top private Universities have similar tuition histories—this fact is less an excuse for Harvard than evidence of a nation-wide malady. Whatever the causes of runaway tuition at the national level, the result is that Harvard has little incentive to keeps its price down. Tuition certainly does not put Harvard at a recruiting disadvantage when it is in the company of high-priced rivals who cannot compete with its financial aid. Some might even argue that the nationwide trend provides a disincentive for low tuition, because cost is often equated with quality. While Harvard probably has the prestige to reverse this way of thinking by lowering its price, there is little reason to do so when it can attract the same students and bring in more revenue simply by going along with the trend. In fact, this year’s increase shows that the administration is willing to outpace the trend. Harvard’s increase puts it at the top of the Ivy League, with Cornell’s tuition hike outpacing ours by a mere 0.1 percent.

We suspect that the benefits to undergraduates will not warrant the magnitude of this increase. Although we support hiring more professors to reduce class sizes and increase student-faculty interaction, the lack of available space makes it unlikely that enough professors would be hired to justify this tuition hike. During the 11-year term of outgoing Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) Jeremy R. Knowles, the size of the senior Faculty increased by only 50—an average of less than five per year.

Finally, the administration’s proposed increases in financial aid are essential and should be of the highest priority. But because financial aid is central to Harvard’s long-term goals—as an institution accessible to people of all socioeconomic backgrounds—the endowment, not tuition, should be the primary source of funds for aid. The endowment is an investment in Harvard’s future, and the expansion of financial aid is the most important such investment.

Given that the announced tuition hike is here to stay, the University should devote the new revenue directly to initiatives such as an expanded freshman seminar program, to more choice in the Core, and to a larger Faculty that is more involved in undergraduate education. It should also account for the difficulty its unexpectedly high increase will cause many families during the current economic slump, especially those that are on the cusp of receiving financial aid. Those who already qualify for aid should receive adjusted packages—as the office has said they will—and they should extend to some families that may not have qualified before the increase. The money generated by this tuition increase should go directly towards increasing the quality of undergraduate education. In the future, the University should be more cautious about raising tuition, as history has shown it willing to tax students out of proportion to the benefits they receive.