<p>The problem is that colleges and universities DO NOT spend their endowments! They spend money in their operating budgets, which comes from revenue, as well as interest off of the endowment. Penn spends somewhere around $4.7 billion a year, just under half of which is payroll. So we’ll say that Penn has $2.35 billion to spend on everything else. </p>
<p>Wellesley, according to its Board of Trustees, had, for FY2007, an operating Budget of only $205 million. Hence, it is probably Penn that has a lot more money to throw at its undergraduate liberal arts majors.</p>
<p>Also, what do you define as part of an undergraduate liberal arts education? I mean, upkeep of facilities, sposoring the research of the professors whose lab you’ll be working in, all has to do with it. What criteria are you selecting?</p>
<p>As to your assertion that you’ll find smaller classes and “friendlier professors” at Wellesley, you admitted yourself that you haven’t been to either place recently, so you have no standing to make this argument. At Penn, I’ve found an amazing number of famous scholars who are also some of the best teachers, most generous people I have ever met.</p>
<p>And, the fact of the matter is, there are more renowned professors at a school like Penn, which DOES matter, especially when–in my experience, as I have said–they are also great people. Schools like Penn steal away faculty from schools like Wellesley all the time (which also speaks to the quality of the faculty at schools like Wellesley).</p>
<p>As to the argument about the dining halls…What? As far as the classrooms go, almost all classrooms at Penn have the latest visual and communications technology installed permanently. Fisher-Bennet Hall, a large classroom building and home of the English Department just underwent a $25 million renovation and the results are impressive. Pretty much the only classrooms that do not have the rechnology permanently installed are the ones that are a hundred + years old and can’t because it woud ruin their character.</p>
<p>I’m not knocking Wellesley, just arguing that your arguments in favor of it were misinformed, and seemed to me like ill-informed jingoism. Both are fantastic schools. </p>
<p>Visit the schools, and decide for yourself.</p>