It seems there's only one thing more predictable than death and taxes--the annual Harvard tuition, room and board increase.

In one of his last official acts before going to Washington to help Richard Nixon fight inflation, outgoing-Dean Dunlop announced last week that the annual cost of an undergraduate education would rise by $280 next Fall to a total of $5025 a year.

Room and board costs will rise $80 in the Colleges and tuition will increase $200 in both the Colleges and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Graduate students in the third year and beyond will continue to pay a $1000 annual residence fee.

The cost increase will be $5 larger than last year's, but some students may find consolation in knowing that as the total grows (and it is now the highest in the Ivy League after bowing to Yale for a year), the rate of increase is steadily declining.

Still, unless Dunlop tames the inflationary spiral and the new dean reduces the chronic Faculty deficit, annual tuition increases are likely to remain a way of life for the hard-pressed Harvard parent.