Run the numbers. 20% of Harvard’s ~$53 billion endowment is more than $10 billion that they can spend, no strings attached.
Yes? But only once. What do they do next year when they need to fund the university?
atzanteol
joined 2 years ago
I'm saying the link describes what the endowment can do, its restrictions, and how the university uses it.
Why can't Harvard use more of its endowment in order to cover additional expenses or reduce tuition costs?
Returns from the endowment foster leading financial aid programs, scientific research discoveries, and hundreds of professorships.
However, there is a common misconception that endowments, including Harvard’s, can be accessed like bank accounts, used for anything at any time as long as funds are available. In reality, Harvard’s flexibility in spending from the endowment is limited by the fact that it must be maintained in perpetuity and that it is largely restricted.
Endowment gifts are intended by their donors to benefit both current and future generations of students and scholars. As a result, Harvard is obligated to preserve the purchasing power of these gifts by spending only a small fraction of their value each year. Spending significantly more than that over time, for whatever reason, would privilege the present over the future in a manner inconsistent with an endowment’s fundamental purpose of maintaining intergenerational equity.
In addition, many donors also designate a specific purpose for which their fund can be spent. For Harvard, over 80 percent of endowed funds are subject to these restrictions. Contributions may be given in support of a specific School, program, or activity, and can only be used for those purposes.
You’re acting as if Harvard has no control over the way they utilize the endowment, and that’s just not true. Of course they want to manage it so that they are only drawing from a portion of the gains rather than actually spending it down. Of course some percentage of funds are earmarked for specific purposes like new buildings, endowed professorships, and the like.
"Some percentage" is a gross understatement:
"In addition, many donors also designate a specific purpose for which their fund can be spent. For Harvard, over 80 percent of endowed funds are subject to these restrictions. Contributions may be given in support of a specific School, program, or activity, and can only be used for those purposes. " (emphasis mine)
None of this means that Harvard cannot make the strategic decision to dip heavily into the endowment to maintain researchers’ livelihoods while their fight moves through the courts. Arguably it’s the fiscally-responsible thing to do
It would be financially ruinous to do so. That endowment spending would be gone. Just gone. You would get short-term payouts but you would fuck University funding for decades. And we're talking core funding which can't be paid back by the grants that would possibly be gotten in the future since those grants pay for the research. Even if they got the grants back that were cancelled it wouldn't be able to re-supply the endowment.
Did you read the link? It answers all your questions.
But after a "voice stress analysis" — a test meant to detect changes in voice patterns — "Daniel admitted to showing three or four pornographic video clips to students," the charges allege.
What the what? What fresh police quackery is this?
I build my infrastructure with the terraform, Ansible and helm charts. The code is it's own documentation as well as comments in that code explaining why I've done things if it's not obvious.
If they really wanted to do "The Right Thing", they have the billions to keep these projects funded for several years while they fight.
No, they don't. Where do you think they could just magic up money?
Edit:
"They have an endowment!"
What do you people think an endowment is? It's not a rainy day slush fund. It's thousands of individual funds that are invested which Harvard, and other schools, use to generate income. But it's the investment that generates income. If they spend down the endowment then it's gone and no more money for the future.
Think of it like a savings account where you live off the interest generated. If you spend the savings, no more interest.
Also - like 80% of that money must be spent in certain schools, types of research, supporting certain students, etc. They can't legally use it for anything else.
Disagree. I doubt your janky math .So what conspiracy theory do you have for why they aren't?