Friday, December 4, 2009

Harvard University Suspends Free Tuition Program




Posted by: Christina Dove

Two years ago, Harvard University annoouced that they would be offering full tuition to third year law students who agreed to work a non profit organization or the government for 5 years after graduating. However, the university recently annnounced that they would have to cut this program. This is devastating news to the low income students who were depending on these funds.

The main reason for the decision is that twice as many students than expected signed up for the offer. Many Harvard Law graduates go on to corporate Wall Street and make millions of dollars. So the university did not anticipate so many students being interested in the free tuition program.

“This was always an experiment and just one of many ways we were trying to encourage students to explore public interest careers,” said Martha Minow, the dean of the law school, adding, “What we found is that we had less trouble than we thought encouraging that.” In addition to the influx of interested law students, the recession was also a determining factor in the cancellation of the free tuition. The university has received 27% less in endowments and this made it difficult to fund such a generous program.



Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/education/03harvard.html?_r=1&em

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g4jW0HJ_2gBUR2XXLIhNqD0WCcCwD9CBECFO1
http://www.good.is/post/No-More-Free-Tuition-At-Harvard-Law

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