<p>The Harvard e3ndowment had a return on investment of 16.7% for the calendar year, and after netting out expenditures and new gifts, ended the year on June 30, 2006, at $29.2 billion - up from $25.9 billion a year earlier.</p>
<p>The Crimson story:</p>
<p>That's an increase of 3.3 billion dollars during this past year. Since the annual income (tuition, room, board, etc.) from undergraduate students is about $292,500,000 (approximately 6500 students x $45,000), the school is in a position to let all current students attend for free this year and still be $3 billion to the good.</p>
<p>When the numbers are this large, what's a mere 11% among friends?</p>
<p>Anyone second this motion?</p>
<p>I've always wondered why Harvard (especially) charged tuition.</p>
<p>Princeton's endowment per student is higher, and Yale's is about the same.</p>
<p>Hey, you don't build a supersized endowment by giving out lots of freebies. I'd argue that a lot of Harvard's staff (not the profs) could use a raise with the insane cost of living in the area.</p>
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<p>I've always wondered why Harvard (especially) charged tuition.</p>
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<p>Because it's a very silly use of charity dollars to donate a free education to my family, who could afford to pay for it. I certainly wouldn't be giving money to Harvard if they used it to hand out freebies to the children of lawyers, bankers, and surgeons.</p>
<p>They DON'T charge tuition to those who really can't afford it.</p>
<p>Good point, except my friend who attends Harvard is in a family that makes something like $200,000 a year but has to support FIVE children, two of whom are in college and three of whom are on the way. Let's see...tuition alone $40,000 x 5 = $200,000 plus oh, expenditures for 7 people. And she didn't get a penny from Harvard so now she's going into huge debt. So, while you have a point Hanna, I personally don't think Harvard is giving out as financial aid as it should.</p>
<p>Sounds a lot like my family, which had four kids, all of whom went to private college for four years, and three of whom then went to private med or law school. My mother stayed home with the kids for 7 years and didn't contribute a full-time salary until the youngest was in sixth grade. None of us got any financial aid from anywhere, and we got through it all with zero debt. It had a lot to do with the family of 6 spending 40 years in the same 3-bedroom townhouse, in a not-very-expensive neighborhood, replacing cars every 10-12 years, etc. Living that way, there was money in our college accounts when the time came. Maybe your friend's family did all of this too, and they were still unable to save anything over the last 20 years, but that's very strange. It's more than reasonable IMHO that colleges expect families that earn six figures to save $10k+ per year.</p>
<p>With a family of 7, two kids in 40K colleges, and zero assets besides home equity, a family earning $200k/year will get an EFC of ~$19K per kid. I don't see why paying $38k per year requires "huge debt" when the family earns over $120K/year after taxes. If their EFC is higher than that, then they have liquid assets they haven't told you about. If they have those assets and they're borrowing anyway, then that means they think other priorities are more important than education, which is fine, but Harvard shouldn't be paying for that.</p>
<p>If the school can generate over 3bil a year just from investment growth, what's the point of charging tution? Making the school free would make it even more attractive, and people would still donate anyway. At very least it should only charge room and board fees.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Sounds a lot like my family, which had four kids, all of whom went to private college for four years, and three of whom then went to private med or law school. My mother stayed home with the kids for 7 years and didn't contribute a full-time salary until the youngest was in sixth grade. None of us got any financial aid from anywhere, and we got through it all with zero debt. It had a lot to do with the family of 6 spending 40 years in the same 3-bedroom townhouse, in a not-very-expensive neighborhood, replacing cars every 10-12 years, etc. Living that way, there was money in our college accounts when the time came. Maybe your friend's family did all of this too, and they were still unable to save anything over the last 20 years, but that's very strange. It's more than reasonable IMHO that colleges expect families that earn six figures to save $10k+ per year.</p>
<p>With a family of 7, two kids in 40K colleges, and zero assets besides home equity, a family earning $200k/year will get an EFC of ~$19K per kid. I don't see why paying $38k per year requires "huge debt" when the family earns over $120K/year after taxes. If their EFC is higher than that, then they have liquid assets they haven't told you about. If they have those assets and they're borrowing anyway, then that means they think other priorities are more important than education, which is fine, but Harvard shouldn't be paying for that.
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Well, good post. My parents earned a similar amount and only had two kids - who won't be in college at the same time. I knew they wouldn't pay for college so I didn't even apply to any private college. I wonder how many students do this exact same thing? That's an application that Harvard didn't even get. Tuition is a factor for many students - regardless of how much their parents earn.</p>
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<p>That's an application that Harvard didn't even get. Tuition is a factor for many students - regardless of how much their parents earn.</p>
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<p>But does that mean Harvard subsidize your parents' second home, fancy cars, or whatever else they're spending on besides tuition?</p>
<p>I'm very sympathetic to arguments that Harvard should be using the endowment funds more aggressively toward some CHARITABLE purpose...a giant AIDS project in Africa, music lessons for every public school child in New England, whatever. But handing out freebies to well-to-do families isn't charity.</p>
<p>^yeah I agree with you on that. The thing is the school has enough financial resources to easily do both, if say it spent 200mil a year on a tuition waiver/discount (assuming they still charge room and board) plus 800mil-1bil for charity, they'll still have more than 2bil left over.</p>
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[quote]
But does that mean Harvard subsidize your parents' second home, fancy cars, or whatever else they're spending on besides tuition?
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At this point it has nothing to do with or without subsidizes other families. It's about getting the best students. That should be the only thing Harvard cares about.</p>
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<p>It's about getting the best students. That should be the only thing Harvard cares about.</p>
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<p>I don't agree. </p>
<p>Harvard has a lot of competing goals, and having the best undergrad class is just one of them. The biggest one is strength across centuries -- the huge endowment is basically an enormous insurance policy that come global warming, come revolution, come whatever, Harvard will still be a leader in whatever universities are doing 500 years from now. A second one is operating for the public good, not just the good of its students. It might advance the world's knowledge more to spend the extra millions on more professors and more research, rather than attracting the few middle-class holdouts who don't apply because of money.</p>
<p>If getting the best students were the ONLY thing Harvard cared about, why not just pay them to come? The yield rate would be 100% if the admission letter promised an annual salary of $90 grand for four years. They could afford it. But I think it would be a perversion of other values the university is trying to stand for.</p>
<p>As I've said, I'm all for spending more of the endowment...just not on the across-the-board elimination of tuition.</p>
<p>...IMO, to frame this question in terms of all or nothing. With the emormous sums at issue here, Harvard is in the enviable position of comfortably being able to accomodate all the competing interests. For example, instead of using 11% of this year's profit, as I originally proposed, it might use half that--leaving about 95% of the profit intact--and reduce the costs to undergraduate students to levels below that of most state schools. </p>
<p>Not only would students and parents welcome that scenario, but think of the fabulous PR that would come from it. </p>
<p>Moreover, would the school really miss about $150 million from $3.3 billion? When your cash assets are hovering near $30 billion (30,000 million dollars), I think $150 million is a relative drop in the bucket. And even if Harvard would miss that money, doesn't the upside outweigh the downside?</p>
<p>Imagine these headlines: </p>
<p>"Harvard or UCLA? The Cost Is The Same" </p>
<p>or</p>
<p>"Princeton And Yale: Twice The Cost Of Harvard"</p>
<p>I think there's room for compromise here, and that compromise would result in a win/win situation for all concerned at Harvard.</p>
<p>.
Hedge fund company lost 4 billion</p>
<p>What abougt Harvard Fund?</p>
<p>this is from two years ago.</p>
<p>Quote:
Harvard will also invest $200 million in an exclusive commodities fund that is managed by Larsons new company, Sowood Capital Management.</p>
<p>Amaranth Advisors, based in Greenwich, Conn., made an estimated $1 billion on rising energy prices last year. Yesterday, the fund told its investors that it had lost more than $3 billion in the recent downturn in natural gas and that it was working with its lenders and selling its holdings “to protect our investors.” Amaranth’s investors include pension funds, endowments .</p>
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[quote]
It might advance the world's knowledge more to spend the extra millions on more professors and more research, rather than attracting the few middle-class holdouts who don't apply because of money.
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Then why attempt to attract lower class students with promises of free tuition?</p>
<p>In many cases students from lower-income backgrounds who are able to establish eligibility for Harvard are young persons who have much more capacity for future achievements that are good for society in general than some students from higher-income backgrounds who appear to have "better" stats. The capacity to overcome adversity and to succeed even with limited resources is precisely what can help make someone a successful scientist, businessperson, or lawyer. </p>
<p>More broadly, admission to Harvard is not a reward for being a good student in high school. Your reward for being a good student in high school is your high school diploma and high school transcript. As long as Harvard has more applicants than spaces in the entering class (and at current list price!), Harvard has to make choices about whom to admit. The admission officers must have some data about the previous years of scholarship students that suggests that means-tested discounting of list price makes more sense than across-the-board free tuition like Cooper Union.</p>