<p>I just think that the hand-wringing about elite college endowments is misplaced.
Just before the market meltdown of 20 months ago or so, Princeton announced spending enhancements. I paid attention because my daughter was a student. The laundry list was for spending initiatives that were unimportant for any student, and of marginal interest even to those making their living off Princeton’s spending. In a nutshell, money wasted.
The impetus behind the “enhancements” was pressure from Congress to increase spending from the endowments, and in Princeton’s case, at least to get annual spending up to around 4% of endowment.
I think our worries should not be directed to the wealthiest among us (the elite colleges), and rather for the government. That would be us. The numbers I have seen say that we owe more per capita as federal and state taxpayers than we do privately. And that trend is exploding.
We may be paying down our mortgages, car loans, credit cards, and student loans (which by the numbers, we are, in each case), but the growth in the amount we owe as citizens is rising even faster in the meantime.</p>