@JBStillFlying - in post #26 you discussed the U’s endowment and fundraising, pointing to them as having fairly good performance recently.
The endowment return this year was fine, not that notable compared to peers:
https://www.chicagomaroon.com/article/2019/11/20/uchicago-endowment-8-billion/
Further, Chicago’s endowment position was actually better 20 years ago compared to now. In 2000, Chicago was the 12th wealthiest university (ahead of UPenn, Duke, and Northwestern). In Jan. 2019, Chicago was the 15th wealthiest university (surpassed by those three schools).
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d01/dt357.asp
https://www.chronicle.com/article/Which-Colleges-Have-the/245587
So, the financial position has regressed a bit over about 20 years.
Re fundraising, I’ve talked about this elsewhere, but in about the time it’s taken Chicago to raise $5B, other Us have raised far greater sums of money. And remember, other schools have shortened time in between major campaigns, raised more money more quickly, and/or sought much larger figures. If you want I can find the data for Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Columbia, UPenn, Hopkins, etc., but I doubt the stats would put Chicago in a particularly favorable light.
Chicago is trying to do more with less, and I wonder if they could’ve cut Admissions spending a bit, but still retained classes that were just as strong. I think the only big hit if they cut out the big money they spend on marketing would be pure number of applicants.