<p>Why can't Harvard tuition pay for my daughter to take ballet lessons? I always thought Harvard was more like Club Med- your tuition covers it all...except it doesn't. It is annoying to pay the tuition and then get asked for more funds! My other kids are 3 boys and a similiar situation did not come up. Are things like this usually covered or not?</p>
<p>I’m not sure what else falls into this category.</p>
<p>Do most activities like dance have a fee?</p>
<p>HRDC (Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club) doesn’t charge fee’s, but there is a yearly fee for my son to play club baseball (at Yale), which covers the cost of uniforms, bats, balls, umpires and the rental of zip cars to travel to games. I imagine it’s the same for Harvard. Fee’s will vary from activity to activity.</p>
<p>Other than the teacher and piano player, what would fees cover? There are none of the issues related to bus travel or uniforms.</p>
<p>Harvard encourages student-directed group activities.</p>
<p>Activities like Harvard Expressions Dance Group, Harvard-Radcliffe Modern Dance or Asian-American Dance Troupe are all no[-extra]-cost. </p>
<p>But taking dance lessons with a professional instructor, that’s a different thing. It doesn’t get as much support, so there’s a fee.</p>
<p>Similarly, you join the band, it’s free; you want trumpet lessons, you pay.</p>
<p>FWIW: All Harvard club sports seem to require the need for fundraising or fees. See fundraising section (pages 14-17): <a href=“http://static.psbin.com/t/i/2j1t4q71ngpv4o/Harvard_University_Club_Sports_Handbook_13-14.pdf[/url]”>http://static.psbin.com/t/i/2j1t4q71ngpv4o/Harvard_University_Club_Sports_Handbook_13-14.pdf</a></p>
<p>Some activities (like choirs) have nominal dues, like $50 a semester, which are used for social programming. Anyone who found them a hardship could get them waived. As I recall, in my day you had to pay for musical instrument lessons. Ballet lessons are probably in that category. It’s basically a not-for-credit course, so it isn’t included in tuition.</p>
<p>Harvard gives a lot less financial support to some student activities, like the performing arts, than you might expect. (Certainly less than I expected.) Student groups are expected to raise money to cover their expenses, whether through ticket sales, alumni donations, dues, whatever. I’m not crazy about this policy in a lot of ways, because it drives arts groups to cater to audience tastes whether that’s the right artistic direction or not. In theory, it could also lead to students being admitted to selective arts groups because the current members want their rich family to donate. (I have not seen that happen, but it could.) At any rate, that is the lay of the land.</p>
<p>If you want money from Harvard to do something academic, like conduct research abroad, they’re super generous with that. Just not student activities.</p>
<p>“But taking dance lessons with a professional instructor, that’s a different thing. It doesn’t get as much support, so there’s a fee.”</p>
<p>Yeah, but Kuumba and the Holden Choirs have professional directors, and no fee except for social dues. They also don’t get money from the college except for the director’s salary and space on campus. If they want to spend money on the rights to a musical piece, for instance, they have to raise that money, even though they are not student-directed.</p>
<p>I understand now. Harvard did fund one of my daughter’s 4 trips to Sweden, as she was interested in self sustained farming. My daughter was also unhappy about the lack of a lot of organic produce at Harvard.</p>
<p>“lack of a lot of organic produce at Harvard.”</p>
<p>Back in my day, we were having drama over whether to provide grapes in the dining hall given the state of farm worker rights. The wheel goes round and round…</p>
<p>My kid’s club fencing team at Chicago charged dues so they could hire a coach and maintain their equipment. The university made some contribution to its budget based on whatever student-activity algorithm it had, but it wasn’t nearly enough to fund what they did.</p>
<p>At the Yale of my youth, you could get music lessons for free if you were really, really, really good. Otherwise, you paid for them – not a lot, they were subsidized, but not nothing. I think ballet was offered free as part of the gym services, but it was very low-level ballet, not something for serious dancers.</p>
<p>My son was in the Glee Club, the Krocs, the Choir, and on the Tae Kwon Do club team (at various times). There may have been a nominal charge with the Glee Club and they did Spring Break trips around the country and one to Ireland at no cost to the students. I am not sure if the funds were provided by the ticket sales or the College. He did not receive voice lessons from the Glee Club, but IIRC, he was able to get a discount on voice lessons from professionals in the Boston area because of his membership in the Glee Club. The Tae Kwon Do team had a relatively nominal fee for coaching, but I think they paid their own way to tournaments. The Krocs had no fee, but they worked their tails off giving concerts and gigs around Boston all year long to pay for their round-the-world tour in the Summer. The Krocs also have an alumni fund (largely for emergencies), but each class is expected to pay their way. The UChoir did not have a fee, but rather paid the singers and if you were in the Choral Fellows you were paid a lot more and received free voice lessons (and you worked a lot more). He was also in a number of other on-campus productions for which he neither paid nor was paid, nor did he receive instruction (but he did receive experience).</p>
<p>My daughters high school charges an activity fee of $300 per year</p>
<p>“I am not sure if the funds were provided by the ticket sales or the College.”</p>
<p>The Glee Club is part of the Holden Choirs. They raise all that tour money through ticket sales and alumni donations/endowment. The College pays nothing.</p>
<p>Complaining that Harvard isn’t paying $X for something, and calculating how many seconds it takes for the endowment to earn that much in interest, are common pastimes. We also used to calculate how much tuition we had wasted if we slept through a class.</p>
<p>Thinking about now, I am sure Harvard is FULL of people with issues about many things! I think most college students are hard to please as well! Here I am ,turning 60 and I am still a princess!</p>