<p>Overall endowment numbers don’t always tell the full story. Like the federal research funding numbers mentioned earlier, there are other interesting twists in the whole Ivy vs. public wealth issue. Here’s an article from a Princeton alumni magazine lamenting its library doesn’t have the funds to keep up with other major libraries (at schools less wealthy overall), with the primary example being the University of Texas at Austin. </p>
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[PAW</a> November 16, 2005: Features](<a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/~paw/archive_new/PAW05-06/05-1116/features_manuscript.html]PAW”>PAW November 16, 2005: Features)</p>
<p>Someone mentioned public university spending for athletics… here’s another article that mentions how public UT-Austin is even able to outspend Harvard and Yale in the literary paper chase, with an analogy to sports teams, no less.</p>
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[Letter</a> from Austin: Final Destination: Reporting & Essays: The New Yorker](<a href=“http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/06/11/070611fa_fact_max]Letter”>Final Destination | The New Yorker)</p>
<p>Sometimes people tend to forget that competitiveness in sports does not preclude an overall competitive drive in academics. Texas is another public school where the athletic program is completely self-supporting, so the exhorbitant coaches’ salaries don’t come from taxpayer or student funds.</p>
<p>UT also recently opened the largest art museum on ANY university campus, in its Blanton Museum of Art. So while there is indeed a long-term threat from private universities, I think the combination of existing top faculty, resources, and large scale federal research experience, coupled with moderate endowments, supplemental state funds (however dwindling), as well as larger alumni pools to draw financial support from, will help publics (top ones at least) to remain competitive.</p>