Colleges like Harvard have a large ecosystem and keep a lot of people employed either directly or indirectly, like cooks, cashiers, groundskeepers, IT staff, teaching and research assistants, companies that make technology for them to use, architects and engineers who design, construct, and maintain their buildings, and more.

However hard it is for someone attending Harvard to go without breakfast, it's much harder for the cook supporting a family on $10/hr or whatever to suddenly have 0$/hr and no heath insurance.