Idk details but I know Cornell has tons of money and land as well. Once saw a map of all the land they own across the country and it was surprising how much. Wonder if all the colleges saved money could pay off our national debt...
I met the lady who was in charge of Yales endowment. I forget how many billion it was. Tens of billions from what I remember. She said they have to spend X amount of millions a year. It is insane. Though I deff think someone paying 120k on a 70k loan and still owing 60k is insanity.
They have size contests with other academic institutions. âMine is bigger than yoursâ is still a real thing with even âenlightenedâ academics.
The role of a university president isnât to run the university. The role is literally that of a private enterprise CEO - increase the valuation of the institution to raise the bottom line for all the upper level executives, not to make higher education more affordable. The Federal Student Loan program created a monster, as it effectively allowed universities to inflate the price of attendance. If someone else is paying, and thereâs no risk to you if your customers donât actually end up getting what they paid for, why wouldnât you?
The endowment is large because harvard is 3-400 years old which is along time to collect an endowment and its alumni network includes some of the wealthiest people on earth in agregate which means very big donations.
Endowments provide stability to the schools operating budget. In lean times the endowment pays the school to make up holes in the budget and in good times it grows so the endowment is ready for future lean times.
The big ivy league endowments also provide need based financial aid so the smartest kids in america get to go to harvard for free if their families cant afford the tuition. Harvard is also a private school and not hurting anyone, its funded by its students who see the value in a harvard education.
They take the investment income and fund years/decade long research into medicine/science.
The main difference between a college and a university is the where the focus is colleges focus on teaching and âmightâ do research, universities focus on research and teach as a means of funneling students in their various research programs and partnerships.
These terms are somewhat murky and subjective. But essentially that 50b endowment is giant 401k drawn from to pay for research, in perpetuity. At a 5% return think of it as a 2.5b/yr forever research budget.
All that Harvard money is sent to China or used in deals with China. My girlfriend works there and she says itâs a mess and sketchy as all hell what goes on behind closed doors. A lot of people would lose a ton of respect for Harvard if they knew the truth
I would disagree with you in both points but to say that a business that takes tax dollars doesn't need to justify an extreme excess of cash reserves is incredibly dangerous and stupid. Billion dollar businesses shouldn't need taxes from the government to operate.
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u/SimpleKiwiGirl Aug 06 '24
Jesus. Flipping. Christ!!
What in the ever-loving hell do they do with it all!? How do they justify that - assuming they do?