CORRECTION APPENDED
With many a law student drawn to the high-powered, high-paying jobs of corporate America, Havard Law School (HLS) recently announced a new initiative aimed at incentivizing public interest law. The plan eliminates tuition payments for the third year of law school for any student who commits to spending the first five years after graduation in public sector or public interest law.

Currently, roughly 60 to 80 students, out of a class of 550, enter the public sector upon graduating. For many, the seemingly insurmountable debt accumulated from years of tuition make low-paying public-interest jobs simply untenable. Some students who enter public interest law now are forgiven of their loans after graduating, but the loan forgiveness program hardly provides explicit encouragement for this branch of law. The new program seeks to rectify that by guaranteeing a tuition-free third year—a psychological frame shift that will hopefully make a public sector career seem more manageable in terms of debt resolution. By combating the pay disparity between such jobs and more lucrative corporate opportunities, this new tuition aid commendably “levels the field,” allowing students to be motivated more by the content of their careers than by pay scales.

That said, such an aim should not cut short a student’s freedom to explore other types of law while in school—something that the summer internship requirement may do. In addition to committing five post-graduation years to public interest work, the program requires that students spend their two summers working in the public sector (see correction). While such a stipulation clearly is intended to demonstrate a student’s commitment to the field, it comes at a cost: the pedagogical value of exploring other fields of law, from corporate litigation to criminal practice. The aims of the program, however, are certainly noble, and Harvard seems to be unique in providing such compensation to all interested students. (Similar programs at other schools selectively choose students to win comparable tuition breaks.)

But beyond monetary incentives, we also hope that HLS Dean Elena Kagan pursues other changes to bolster HLS’s public interest program. Students should be encouraged to enter the field not simply to alleviate the burdens of tuition, but also because the quality of teaching, scholarship, and public interest programs at HLS genuinely motivate students’ career choices. In that vein, Kagan has already made strides with her recent hires, from Cass R. Sunstein ’75 to Noah Feldman ’92 to Jeannie Suk, all of whom have made significant contributions to scholarship that affects public interest and public sector law.

As the modest $3 million budget reveals, however, a lingering uncertainty remains as to whether this new program will encourage additional students to join or merely lighten the load on those who are already interested in public interest law. If the latter turns out to be true, Kagan would be entirely justified in extending the budget and scope of the program. After all, the effort to encourage scholarship and participation in public interest and public sector law is both necessary and noble.

CORRECTION
This editorial incorrectly stated that the Harvard Law School tuition break program for students entering public interest law requires students to spend two summers in a public interest job.  In fact, they are only required to complete one such 10-week summer job. The Crimson regrets the error.