look up diminishing returns if you want to know the impact that $20 billion vs $10 billion at a small school has on retaining the top students/professors
It’s all relative. Umich at $10 billion can offer full cost of attendance for in state students, who have a much lower tuition cost. Other public schools cannot manage this. But with 25,000 undergrads from relatively less wealthy backgrounds (more financial need) than HYPSM, it absolutely cannot afford to allure all out of state applicants. Thus an extra $10 billion would do wonders.
Small private schools can afford to do this at $10 billion
The endowments don’t really help draw professors once you have top of the line facilities, so much as the prestige, tenure, and research opportunity and factors beyond control, like geographic preference
I do agree with others that a heavily socialized endowment means nothing. Heck, china could throw $1 trillion into shanghai U and instantly dwarf all of that. But what would be the point? I also find myself asking what is the point in harvard having the GDP of estonia (population 1.3 million) stashed away and shouldn’t they lose their tax exempt status and stop nagging freshly minted alums for donations?
and “prestige” is shit. We have totally lost sight of what really matters in college - educating!!