This morning at Starbucks I saw a little girl eating graham crackers and drinking apple juice and it took me back to my youth. Not sure who wrote the memo that that combo was the only suitable snack to give kids in pre-school, but that was fine by me. I also remembered the rule that you should not bring in anything you were not willing to share with the class. My trip down memory lane got me thinking about a Harvard newsletter I had received touting our growing endowment - it went up by $6 billion last year alone, to a cool $34.6 billion.
Meanwhile, I recently took my younger sister on a college tour and have been searching books to find grants and ways to cobble together tuition money for her next year. Something about this whole picture was not adding up. If more and more schools have tons of money sitting around (76 schools now have endowments over $1 billion according to USA today, a record) why are they not sharing the wealth with their students and easing the pain for so many parents?!
Apparently, the schools with the most money use the least of it to hire faculty, compete for research, and make improvements and the like. There is no question that these schools deserve credit for investing wisely and getting handsome returns, but I do think they need to do more to help their students and should not forget that their money is tax exempt, meaning they are suppose to use it for public benefit. Senator Grassley from Iowa has suggested that colleges with endowments of $500 million or more be required to spend 5% of it each year just like private foundations have to; I could not agree more.
Families and students need help affording college--open up your coffers, Harvard, and share the wealth!
Comments (5)
I have always doubted that those in government are really interested in helping everyone get a good college education. Do they really want an educated public? Wouldn't that threaten politics as usual? Back in the 60's, most of the questions being raised about the political status quo popped up on college campuses. All those well educated young men and women started asking questions. If you are a career politician, is that what you want?
Posted by: Tom Ricci on February 11, 2008 21:09
Like so much in contemporary lfe, there are no easy answers to this problem. Many gifts to endowment funds have restrictions on them.
"I'll give you 250 million dollars to build a new library, gymnasium, dormitory, whatever, and name it for my late wife." That's all you can do with that donation. Otherwise, you have to give it back and no school is going to do that. Period.
Posted by: clarktacular on February 12, 2008 14:38
I have been putting away for my daughter's fund since she was 2 and I am hoping she will have enough to go to a good Division 1 college, or to have enough money to get her started it life. So she does not have go into debt immediately.
It would be nice if the money these schools had somehow circulated back to the student.
Posted by: TheBoss on February 12, 2008 19:47
Flavia:
Because the schools are run by liberals that is why.
Libs are do as I say not do as I do. You probably kiss up to big foundations like the PEW. They have $4 Billion and only spend $300 Million a year!! That is a drop in the bucket- now they are behind a sorta secret push to get taxpayers pay for all day PRE-K.
Why doesn't the PEW offer to pay for it as a grand experiment? I suggest you approach them and get an answer to that question. Charitable foundation indeed! What did Rebecca Rimel, the chairman, get paid last year?
I bet you don't have the guts to ask them.
Posted by: Anon on February 13, 2008 13:38
Flavia,
Ivy league schools like harvard, princeton, yale and even Penn have adopted plans to pick up the tabs on tuition for students under a certain household income level rather than making them owe student loans after graduation. I applaud them for taking this important step but also know this: a few politicians , like you, noticed the endowments stacking up and threatened to revoke these schools "non profit" tax status unless they started divvying up at least 5% of that bounty every year in scholarships and aid so they didn't exactly act out of the goodness of their hearts
Posted by: remo on February 13, 2008 15:40