Now, if I were you Larry, I’d do something about this quick. Princeton, as usual, has made us look downright stingy by doing away with loans entirely. Matching them tit-for-tat won’t do—Harvard, of all places, should never be caught playing catch-up for long. So I’d like to propose a new financial aid formula—you economists like formulas, don’t you?—to use for financial aid. If family income after taxes < $100,000 x # of children/family then tuition, room and board are free. Absolutely free. No loans, no mandatory work-study, no restrictions. Just plain free. It’s a nice word, Larry.
Bulldoze Radcliffe Yard.
Stop laughing, Larry—I’m not kidding. I think some people still work there, but I could be wrong. In any case, with Radcliffe now totally absent from the experience of most female undergrads, there’s no reason to house the Radcliffe Institute on such prime Cambridge real estate. For starters, the nonessential stuff—excluding Schlesinger Library, Agassiz Theater and whatnot—should be moved somewhere less expensive. I hear there’s space next to the Harvard Book Depository, out in the Berkshires. There’s some lovely views out there, and good skiing.
After you bulldoze the place, you should build a new residential house on that land. I propose the name “Rubalcava House,” but I’m willing to negotiate. The point is, there are too many students at Harvard. Maybe our admissions standards are getting too lax (I would be Exhibit A in that court case), or maybe our admissions officers and House masters have an optimistic view of what constitutes “living space.” Come by my room, Larry—it’s Eliot K-31. I’ll show you the partition that my roommates and I had to build to give us even a simulacrum of privacy. Students all over the River Houses—and even a few Quaddies, I hear—have to build these things to avoid driving our roommates insane. And then I walk through the vast open spaces of the Radcliffe Institute, and I can’t help but think what a wonderful location it would be for Rubalcava House. Can’t you just picture it, Larry? Lovely—lovely, I tell you.
In any case, Larry, feel free to e-mail me at arubalc@fas.harvard.edu if you have any questions. I’m happy to consult with you on any spending projects you’d like to undertake in your first year. Of course, Larry, nothing in life is free. My going rate is $19,000,000,000 per project.
Alex F. Rubalcava ’02 is a government concentrator in Eliot House. His column appears on alternate Mondays.