How did Columbia end up so poor?

Denzera
Wed, 29 Jul 2009 14:36:04 +0000

Yeah, what they don’t tell you is that it was total financial mismanagement in the 70s and 80s that led to them having to sell that Rockefeller Center land, and for it they got $500MM - not nothing in 1985, but it would be worth easily ten times that now, if not more.

Basically, Columbia’s finances used to be much closer to its peer schools, but we had a few screw-ups in charge a few decades ago and we’re still playing catch-up as best we can. $6 Bn is still nothing to sneeze at, though, and Bollinger’s capital campaign for the manhattanville campus is probably a big help to that.