I won't defend Harvard's tuition. But I will tell you that I wrote a book about what happens when you conflate signal and human capital. And it's not pretty. You don't really stick it to Harvard when you do that. You stick it to the rest of us.

If you want a refund for the tuition would you also accept a seal on your Harvard degree that says "online only"? If not, why not? What do you think you pay for, exactly?

And I hate it but it is the reality of the thing. You cannot turn signal into capital mid-stream. And if you did, you only hurt the student and downstream institutions who don't have the save prestige to buffer them the way Harvard does.

It would satisfying to get the refund. But if you turn the top of the prestige hierarchy of higher education into LowerEd, it just accelerates the race to the bottom for all the other students and institutions. Harvard will actually be fine, as either an institution or an idea.

The tuition isn't paying the "bills" as you might imagine it. I am borrowing this Penn State graphic to make a point (yes, Harvard's allocation would be different but not remarkably so and Harvard didn't have a graphic)

I mean, dock Harvard or whatever. But if you double down on "discount tuition based on service" road then we may as well stop the whole enterprise altogether. Which is certainly a way to go. My personal ambitions aside, it is an option. But at least know what you're asking