Posted on 04/02/2008 8:35:20 AM PDT by vadum
Colleges and universities are the richest institutions in the history of our nation --136 U.S.c olleges and universities have endowments larger than $500 million, 74 of which top $1 billion-- yet tuition continues to skyrocket while tax-free school endowments grow ever fatter. Lawmakers now question whether school endowments should remain unregulated and exempt from taxes, and are considering requiring schools to spend a percentage of their value each year, as private foundations must. Several schools have announced plans to dip into their endowments to defray students’ tuition expenses, but are they doing as much as they should in the area of financial aid? And are they violating donor intent by sitting on funds for generations?......
But a close look reveals that these schools are doing little different than they have for years, despite the fact that their endowment wealth has increased to a point that would allow some colleges and universities to eliminate—and many to substantially alleviate—the tuition burden for tens of thousands of undergraduates...... Harvard’s annual aid to undergraduates will now total $120 million—a $22 million increase over last year...... With a $34.9 billion endowment, Harvard sits on the LARGEST FORTUNE AMASSED BY ANY INSTITUTION IN THE HISTORY OF OUR NATION...... Harvard is so wealthy that it would take less than 1% endowment spending for its students to attend tuition-free. But at its current rate of spending, billions of dollars in donations that Harvard promised donors it would spend on aid will just sit unused for generations, serving no purpose. And, all the while the university will keep charging tuition, raising tuition, and even continue to charge an application fee. These schools are thumbing their noses at the wishes of alumni who have donated billions in the hope that universities will truly throw open their doors......
(Excerpt) Read more at capitalresearch.org ...
This article is just advocating more socialism. Some one else telling a corporate entity how they should spend their money. No different than Hillary saying she'll take the oil companies' profits from their shareholders and spend them the way she wants - buying votes from envious lazy morons.
If the Socialists won’t pay for Socialism, who will?
Nope. He's pointing out the hypocrisy.
The is the author of "The Politics of Peace" which exposes the anti-American reprobates behind the "anti-war movement".
Capital Research Center also exposes the socialist aims of “enviromentaists”.
How about one just says that instititutions with endowments of a certain size no longer have a need for federal aid? i.e the rich don’t need help.
I’m not sure what to make of this issue. It does seem unfair that these universities sit on so much cash while charging so much to attend.
On the other hand, these are private institutions. They are entitled to spend (or not spend) their endowments however they see fit. Of course that thought really doesn’t hold up when applied to public universities where a portion of the tuition is subsidized by state taxpayers.
The real reason is that the people in charge of these schools really do not want “the doors flung open to all deserving students”. Such a move would forever destroy the highly affluent culture of the campus.
One way of looking at it.
Harvard is not corporate. It is more akin to a church or a charitable foundation. People who donate to Harvard can deduct that donation on their taxes.
If they don't spend it for tuition, it's likely they'll spend it on politicized mischief like climate control.
If we further assume that of the return 80% is reinvested back into the endowment to grow the endowment; 10% is used by the University for operational expenses and 10% of the annual return is used for assistance, you would be just about that $120 Million amount.
The ONLY thing I want the government to do is require transparency. A full annual disclosure of the endowments donation receipts and expenditures from the endowment to be made available to the public.
Of course, we cant even get that from political campaigns so I'm not sure how we are going to get that from a private non-profit fund.
All too true, but they should be free to spend their money the way they want. As someone else pointed out this is blatant hypocrisy, but that's always true of rich socialist institutions. Look at the Catholic church and the pope's new sins - the sin of accumulating wealth. The Vatican is probably worth over a trillion dollars, but it's a sin for us to accumulate wealth.
Let me see. Liberals, unions, tenure, ivory towers. In a general sense, did I miss anything?
I think if people are going to get tax deductions from donating to these things - tax deductions that get them tangible things like preferential admissions for their children, the taxpaying public has an interest in regulating what goes on behind the curtain. Note that these private colleges are also non-profit entities that pay no taxes - instead, they pay their profits to their managers in the form of ever more generous benefits and pay packages.
I know the people at CRC. They are conservatives.
I think the problem with college endowments is that they support colleges that are subsidized by taxpayers via student grants, loans and research grants. On top of the fact that they charge students for attending.
I agree. Let's sell all of the artwork and marble to private corporations. Who cares about preserving it for future generations.
I too have wondered why more schools don't take a fraction of their endowment and apply it to tuition.
However, specific to this article....Harvard is a private entity and can do whatever it wants. AFAIC, it can stack up its endowment in 1 dollar bills and burn it in the furnace to keep warm.
You managed to either completely miss my point due to incomprehension because I didn't explain it clearly enough or completely miss my point because you're a jerk and want to deliberately pick an argument. I'm assuming the former so I'll explaining it to you as an aristotelian syllogism, and maybe that will make it clearer to you.
Major premise: The vatican is worth a trillion dollars that is to say the Vatican is very wealthy. Minor premise: The pope declared the accumulation of wealth to be a sin. Conclusion: By the pope's declaration the Vatican has indulged in sin because the Vatican is wealthy. I was pointing out the hypocrisy of a very wealthy socialist institution - the Catholic Church
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