THIS WEEK, Harvard will embark on the latest and largest of its fund-raising ventures, a colossal campaign to raise $250 million over five years that officials say is their last recourse to fight inflation. As the campaign charges across the nation, moving from east coast to west, and from big donors to small, it will be easy to sit back and watch the money roll into Harvard's coffers.

Getting the money, however, is only half the game--deciding where it should go is at least as important. Administrators are much more vague about how they will distribute their new funds than about how they will obtain them.

The campaign has a number of worthy stated goals, including endowment of faculty salaries, building renovations, student financial aid, new junior faculty positions, and the Public Policy program. It would be a shame, though if none of the millions raised from alumni ever makes its way to students in the form of eased tuition increases. Faculty officials say the $120 million or so they will raise to endow faculty salaries and student financial aid will give them much more flexibility in annual budget-making, by freeing money currently restricted to specific uses for whatever purposes Dean Rosovsky and his Faculty budgeters want. No one, however, will say whether that flexibility will help keep tuition down.

Financial reports show that students and parents have shouldered an increasingly large burden in providing overall University income over the past decade. Admissions officials fear the growth in tuition may be driving away middle-income applicants. And worried parents note that not only tuition itself but the rate at which it increases leaps each year. Easing that rate should be a top priority for Rosovsky as he decides what to do with his new money.

During the next five years of the capital campaign, faculty members, students and officials should not be so dazzled by impressive fund-raising efforts that they fail to watch the incoming money closely. Administrators must make sure the $250 million does not sink into Harvard's endowment without a trace. Students should watch to ensure that some of it helps moderate future tuition rises.