Harvard Law to stop program giving year of free tuition to students who go into public service

Harvard Law stops free-tuition public law program

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Harvard University’s law school has announced it will stop offering a year of free tuition to students who opt to go into public service law after graduation.

Dean Martha Minow said in an e-mail this week to students and faculty that the school will suspend its Public Service Initiative to future incoming classes. The university has suffered investment losses while also seeing an increase in students looking for public service jobs.

Launched in 2008, the program waived tuition for third-year law students who agreed to work in public interest law for five years after graduation.

Harvard’s largest-in-the-nation endowment has shrunk nearly $11 billion in fiscal 2009 from a high of $36.9 billion.