Harvard alumnus Ron Unz has qualified to be a candidate for the Board of Overseers. This is news because Unz, a former publisher of The American Conservative, has aligned himself with a couple of alumni—including Ralph Nader—in the hopes of ending undergraduate tuition at the prestigious institution.
The group—which includes former presidential candidate, environmental activist, and Harvard Law School alumnus Ralph Nader—calls itself “Free Harvard, Fair Harvard,” a name that evokes its two-pronged platform. The candidates argue Harvard’s endowment, which grew to $37.6 billion last fiscal year, is large enough to allow the University to stop charging undergraduates for tuition. The group also calls into question Harvard’s admissions practices, which they contend may be discriminatory against Asian-American applicants, and demands more detailed data about how Harvard ultimately selects students.
Ron K. Unz ’83, the campaign’s organizer and spokesperson, said a free College education would combat the perception that only wealthy students can afford to attend Harvard.
What do the critics have to say about this plan to turn Harvard into some socialist paradise?
Critics also assert a large endowment doesn't necessarily enable the college to offer free tuition, though. The endowment is not like "one big bank account" that can be drawn from for any purpose, Robert Reischauer, an economist and former senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation, argued in The New York Times.
"I hardly think that spending such a tiny slice of Harvard's investment income on education is so unreasonable, and I find it difficult to believe that undisclosed restrictions on the university's financial holdings would legally prohibit this," Unz hit back, in a letter in The Times.
The fact of the matter is that if you get to go to Harvard, you have a much better chance of getting to have more of the money in our society than other people. This is one of the reasons Harvard’s endowment is so high. There will always be legacies and the fact of the matter remains that when you start with money, you have a better chance of getting all the educational advantages that put you into position to be accepted by Harvard anyway. Make it free!