<p>This is an ESPN article but buried about a quarter of the way down they talk about the Harvard 36.4 billion endowment. Some interesting opinions. </p>
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<li>Harvard’s endowment is already more than double the GDP of Iceland.</li>
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<p>*TMQ contends the rich should not donate to the Ivy League, Stanford or a few other colleges that exist for the elite and already have ginormous endowments. Rather, the rich should give to schools for the average. At such colleges, donations reduce inequality, and make a difference in people’s lives. Donations to Harvard only make inequality worse.</p>
<p>*At 5 percent, Harvard’s endowment would generate $1.8 billion annually in perpetuity. So how can Harvard possibly need more? That sum equates to $2.6 million per undergraduate per year – almost 50 times the school’s sticker price.</p>
<p>*Two recent gifts: a $350 million gift from Hong Kong businessman Gerald Chan and a $150 million gift from U.S. investor Kenneth Griffin.</p>
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<li>Let’s consider Griffin, a U.S. citizen. The deductibility of donations to higher education means Griffin really gave Harvard about $100 million, with taxpayers covering the balance. Ordinary people whose children are buried under student loans, and can only dream of attending Harvard, will be taxed to fund the transfer of another $50 million to the Crimson elite.</li>
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<p>*There may be no solution to the rich making gifts for ego rather than social benefit. But there is a solution to tax favors for the top of higher education: legislation to end the deductibility of donations to colleges or universities whose endowments exceed $1 million per enrolled student.</p>
<p>This idea alone isn’t going to be too controversial, problem is the natural extension of this idea, that you’ll go after tax deductions for tithes and other donations to churches, which will create a huge uproar and is really about the same kind of idea.</p>
<p>@Hanna made me do the math…lets see … $1,800,000,000 divided by 20,000 students, comes out to $90,000 per student. Harvard really has a bit over 28,000 (10,534 undergraduate) students, so the number is closer to $64K a student.</p>
<p>Stop giving to the Metropolitan museum- their collection is so huge they don’t have space to store and exhibit all of it. Stop giving to Notre Dame- they just need to cut the salary of their football coach by a smidge and they’ll have plenty of money (put Penn State in that category also. And why can’t U Conn cut back on what it spends on basketball?) Stop giving to the United Way- if they didn’t make such fancy posters for their annual corporate drive, they could afford to give more money to the Boys and Girls Clubs.</p>
<p>Is there a way for the rich, often private school educated, to be encouraged to support their local flagship U’s? Consider the numbers who go to those schools- including many elite school caliber. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to improve those state institutions and educate the masses the rich live among and their employee pool?</p>
<p>Many people give for very specific purposes, such as the recent large gift to Harvard for public health research. However, I do agree that your gift for general purposes will do more good for more people at a college that is much more cost-efficient.</p>
<p>That must include everybody’s who’s taking one course at the extension school. There are about 6500 in Harvard College. (The extension school students are a profit center, not beneficiaries of the endowment, so they probably shouldn’t come into the analysis.)</p>
<p>Base numbers are wrong. $32 Billion Endowment /21,000 students = about $1.5 million/student</p>
<p>It’s not so much that Harvard is inefficient, just that they could survive indefinitely with no more donations based solely on return from their endowments. </p>