<p>"Lost in all this arguementation about this small sliver of higher education is that what the country really needs right now is more first rate vocational education, community colleges, and job training. Right now in America we grant more PhD's in physical anthropology every year than there are jobs. If every physical anthropologist in every college, university, museum, etc were to retire this year all the PhD's graduating this year still couldn't get a job."</p>
<p>Do people going for a PHD in physical anthropogy know there aren't many jobs available when they finish?</p>
<p>"What the world needs is to tap into some of those bulging ever growing endowments of these very wealthy schools so it can spend and invest that money on higher education."</p>
<p>Are there restrictions on enough of the endowment to prevent using more of it? This article seems to indicate that it might, or it perhaps it's just a good excuse. The school may just be more intesrest in preserving, "its Aa1 credit rating from Moody's."</p>
<p>"[University of] Richmond's endowment is actually made up of approximately 1,200 individual endowments-many of them scholarships or other restricted funds-that by agreement with donors are preserved in perpetuity. Only the income from these funds can be spent, and that income can only be spent on the specific objectives set out by the donors."</p>
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What the world needs is to tap into some of those bulging ever growing endowments of these very wealthy schools so it can spend and invest that money on higher education. If Williams were a public corporation some corporate raider would have done that already. In the absence of such a mechanism for private corporations the government ought to do it. Start taxing these endowments and spend the money on education.
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<p>You want to dismantle the funding mechanism for the world's best system of private higher education (a funding mechanism based on centuries of charity and savings) in order to put the resources into the general funds of state and federal governments that have, whenever it's politically expedient, gutted spending on education?</p>
<p>The argument could be made that the US system of higher education is our single most valuable national resource. It is certainly the envy of the world. I would have to think long and hard before agreeing with the idea of dismantling it, especially when the funding is in place to keep the system going, largely with little or no assistance from the federal and state governments beyond tax-exempt charitable status.</p>
<p>It already seems clear that the number of private colleges will continue to decline over the next several decades without pulling the rug out from under the financial foundations of these schools. You don't have to go very far down the rankings of private liberal arts colleges or private universities to find schools that are not in financial equilibrium (i.e. that are spending from their endowments at too high a rate).</p>
<p>I don't want to completely dismantle it but there comes a point where things get ridiculous. Does Harvard really need a $29 billion endowment? They can't even usefully spend the earnings from it. And why should we be giving a tax break, a charitable write-off to some billionaire giving $10 or $20 or $100 million more to that enormous horde? I say let the government stick their hand in there and grab a little. Heck it is downright obscene that we the taxpayers should be giving Harvard Pell Grant money. They need the subsidy like the Pope needs more funny clothes.</p>
<p>Don't worry. I am quite confident that quite a few Boston and Massachussetts political hacks will be sticking their hands in their and grabbing a little before all the permits for the new Allston campus are approved.</p>
<p>My wife went to Harvard. Harvard called us last night to ask for money. Seems to me like they have plenty already.</p>
<p>It reminds me of the super-elite highly exclusive semi-secret nightclubs that dot the landscape in Manhattan. Since it's so exclusive, it must be a great place. And since it's such a great place, the most beautiful and wealthy people are desparate to get in. So the members are super elite people, which in turn justifies the exclusivity and greatness.</p>
<p>The whole time, the club's owners are ****ing in their pants, because they know that the whole house of cards could come crashing down at any minute. </p>
<p>In my opinion, this is why places like Harvard are constantly trying to out-do eachother by building spiffy student centers, expanding their african-american studies departments, etc. Because they know it's very important that people perceive the school as super-duper-elite. If a perception develops that the school isn't keeping up with Yale or Stanford, that perception can easily become reality.</p>
<p>It's not uncommon for colleges to spend mucho dinero tearing down and renovating perfectly serviceable buildings. I think it's in large part to signal to the world that they are elite institutions.</p>