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Endowment per student is a commonly used measure of institutional wealth; in fact, even Penn uses it. According to [url=<a href=“http://www.upenn.edu/almanac/volumes/v53/n28/uc.html]Penn[/url”>04/03/07, FY 2007 Budget: Report to University Council - Almanac, Vol. 53, No. 28]Penn[/url</a>], their endowment per student is about $250,000; Penn says that this puts them in 65th place nationwide. For comparison, [url=<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._colleges_and_universities_by_endowment]Wellesley[/url”>List of colleges and universities in the United States by endowment - Wikipedia]Wellesley[/url</a>] has about $600,000 per student, and ranks about 15th nationwide.
Check your stats. According to [url=<a href=“http://www.upenn.edu/almanac/volumes/v53/n28/uc.html]Penn[/url”>04/03/07, FY 2007 Budget: Report to University Council - Almanac, Vol. 53, No. 28]Penn[/url</a>], the total budget is indeed $4.7 billion, but $2.3 billion goes to the Health System. The total budget for academics is $2.4 billion, including payroll. General university overhead is about $0.7 billion, leaving $1.7 billion for the Schools. </p>
<p>The School of Arts and Sciences gets 18% of that, which is about $300 million. Given that SAS has some 8,500 undergraduates and grad students, their per-student expenditures appear lower than $200 million for 2,300 undergrads at Wellesley. In fairness, some percentage of the $700 million budget for university overhead should be allocated to SAS, but I still suspect Wellesley will come out ahead. </p>
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Are they caring and generous enough to teach introductory sections to undergraduates – like at Wellesley – or do they leave that chore to their grad students?</p>
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This is true, but part of their appeal is that universities like Penn allow faculty to spend less time on undergraduate teaching, and more time on graduate-level teaching and research. </p>
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Agreed.</p>