Updated Endowment $$$$$ List Out

Parents Forum
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<p>dstark:</p>

<p>Those numbers are already "adjusted". The number I posted for each college is the net subsidy -- the difference between the per student operating cost and the net per student tuition, fees, and charges.</p>

<p>For our two examples (2004/05) so it is clear:</p>

<p>Berea:</p>

<p>$37,101 per student operating expense</p>

<h2> $4,285 per student revenues (net tuition, fees, room/board)</h2>

<p>$32,816 per student subsidy</p>

<p>Swarthmore:</p>

<p>$68,304 per student operating expense</p>

<h2>$26,505 per student revenues (net tuition, fees, room/board)</h2>

<p>$41,719 per student subsidy</p>

<p>The lion's share of the difference in operating expenses is faculty and staff compensation. Swarthmore spends $21,000 more per student on this budget item, reflective of both the size of the faculty and staff and top-of-the-market pay scales. </p>

<p>Both of these schools are roughly the same size. Berea is just over 1500 students; Swarthmore just under.</p>

<p>In the case of private colleges, the per student subsidy is funded by endowment spending and annual giving. </p>

<p>Thus, per student endowment is really critical in understanding "consumer value" (what do I pay; what do I get?). It is no coincidence that the schools with the largest per student endowments tend to be the most highly ranked and most selective. If Mercedes cut its pricing in half without reducing content, I suspect they would get great reviews from the car magazines and have customers lined up around the block.</p>

22

<p>"The lion's share of the difference in operating expenses is faculty and staff compensation. Swarthmore spends $21,000 more per student on this budget item, reflective of both the size of the faculty and staff and top-of-the-market pay scales." </p>

<p>Interesteddad, I would like to see the numbers with the different pay scales taken out.</p>

<p>For example, if Swat paid their professors $150,000 a year and Berea paid their professors $100,000 a year and everything else was the same, Swats expenses per student would be much larger. This does not mean; however, that a student is getting more value at Swat.</p>

<p>What I would like to see is what would the numbers look like if both schools paid their professors the same.</p>

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<p>Mini knows that I know that he knows of a student who matriculated at Berea briefly but decided the experience wasn't suitable. It's definitely not for everyone.</p>

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<p>Hey, I wouldn't go to Berea. :)</p>

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<p>By the way, where did the money first come from in some of those highly ranked cases? I suppose Rice's endowment began with oil money, right? How about Emory's endowment, which I was surprised to see so high on the list?</p>

26

<p>Emory has benefitted from Coca Cola.</p>

<p>Re Berea and Swarthmore, here are some basic facts.</p>

<p>Berea: Enrollment 1514. Faculty: 131 full-time, 29 part-time. 91% hold highest degree.</p>

<p>Swarthmore: Enrollment 1484. Faculty: 164 full-time, none part-time. 98% (162) hold highest degree.</p>

<p>What might be interesting to look into is the distribution of faculty across disciplines.</p>

27

<p>"Berea:</p>

<p>$37,101 per student operating expense</p>

<h2>$4,285 per student revenues (net tuition, fees, room/board)</h2>

<p>$32,816 per student subsidy</p>

<p>Swarthmore:</p>

<p>$68,304 per student operating expense</p>

<h2>$26,505 per student revenues (net tuition, fees, room/board)</h2>

<p>$41,719 per student subsidy"</p>

<p>I am going to go to sleep, but looking at Interesteddad's numbers it can be argued that Berea is a better deal based on percentage terms as you are only paying 11% of the cost of going to Berea compared to 39% at Swat.</p>

<p>Also you are paying less nominally at Berea $4,285 vs. $26,505, so again you can argue that you getting a better deal at Berea.</p>

28

<p>Marite:</p>

<p>The Swarthmore faculty number you gave is just the tenured and tenure-track faculty. There are another 27 full-time non-tenture track faculty and 33 part time faculty on the payroll.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.swarthmore.edu/Admin/institutional_research/faculty.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.swarthmore.edu/Admin/institutional_research/faculty.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>On Emory:</p>

<p>The Woodruff family (Coca-Cola founders) gave huge chunks of Coca-Cola stock to Emory back in the early days. That stock went through the roof. In similar fashion to Stanford and Duke, Emory is using that endowment to reposition themselves from regional university to national status.</p>

<p>Of course, they also brought in more than a billion dollars in revenues from selling pharmaceutical R&D patents last year. To be honest, a lot of these universities are really pushing the definition of a non-profit enterprise.</p>

29

<p>Interesteddad:</p>

<p>Thanks for the correction. I looked up the quick facts section to come up with that statistics. So the Swat numbers are
faculty: 191 full-time and 33 part-time vs. Berea, 131 full-time and 29 part-time.
I'm assuming that there is a corresponding difference in administrative and support staff.</p>

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<p>As far as I can tell, permanence is really at the center of what these univesities are trying to do with all this money. Harvard and Yale are substantially older than the United States (Harvard ~150 years older); they've survived revolution, civil war, financial disasters, etc. This isn't just about a vibrant Alston campus in 2035. I think they really have in mind a Harvard/Yale that maintains a position of global leadership and influence 500 years from now, come hell or (thanks to global warming) high water. This is entrenchment. Honestly, I think the best historical model for that kind of ambition across centuries and across the fall of empires isn't Oxford or Cambridge; it's the Vatican.</p>

<p>Whether you think that's a good or bad thing depends mainly on whether you think huge universities have a positive effect on the world, or whether you think their primary product is self-perpetuation.</p>