This is pretty spectacular and is going to be a huge boost to this school in so many ways. Congratulations Stony Brook!
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I heard this on the news yesterday and could not believe it!
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I love when donations go to schools that serve regular people and don’t already have huge endowments.
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Yes, it’s really a staggering amount of money. I expect Stony Brook will reap huge benefits from this.
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Unfortunately, the donors made the critical mistake of not earmarking the $ - it will go into the endowment. How much do you think will really help the students vs. being wasted on administrative bloat and asinine endeavors?
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Endowment draws often get used to increase aid for students. Why wouldn’t it in this case?
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Why assume this will happen?
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Wow, he became a billionaire after teaching math? I’m in the wrong profession and I’m going to go teach math now!
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12 years in academia observing the waste.
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Many of the pioneers of quantitative hedge funds came from math academia.
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I commented the same.
My college got a solid chunk of donations not long ago. Head of the college got 11% salary increase while faculty salaries were frozen for 3 years. And our applications are still down.
I dont even know if there was any true increase in scholarship money for incoming students.
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I’ve always thought that if I were ever to win the billion dollar lotto, I would definitely pay it back and give it to the staffs at the universities, as well as knowing exactly where and how to designate most of it.
I would also designate a commuter building for the kids that commute whereby the students could rest up and stay on campus for a full day and night of classes. We were really fortunate, at my former university (although I think they got rid of it with an upgrade); they had lounge chairs where the commuters could take a nap in between classes. It was quiet, and the space was in aa glass enclosure monitored by staff. There was a separate area for coffee and snacks. If you didn’t want to lose your parking space, or just needed rest, you could do that in the area while you waited for your next class or lab.
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Interesting. I commuted for college and the college had a lounge like this. I used it a lot because I’d often have hours’ long gaps between classes.
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This is a super smart family, with extensive experience with not for profit educational institutions. I would not be so quick to assume they’ve made a rookie mistake.
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