<p>Just as a thought process, which of the Ivies will fare the best during and after the possible coming financial meltdown. Assume that the U.S. dollars value is destroyed through inflation or massive deflation and destruction of assets. Assume the Endowments of all the Ivies are Leveled to the same $1billion. Assume that the financial and banking class is wiped out. Assume there is loss of the social saftety net and social unrest. Which of the Ivy league schools will best survive. This may be a relevant question when choosing schools this fall.</p>
<p>Princeton, Yale and Harvard have the highest endowments per student.</p>
<p>I think the following allegory sufficiently answers your question:</p>
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</p>
<p>With apologies to my friends the Brunos.</p>
<p>That’s ok. Most of us NYers at Brown (third largest state population at Brown) all know the kids who did worse in high school than us and went up to the snowy hills of Cornell to freeze their asses off to say they went to the Ivies, too.</p>
<p>Honestly, this question is far less relevant than you think and the answer is pretty easy to answer-- find out which school is spending the least out of its interest from the endowment each year when you remove major building projects. Not sure where or how to find that data, but whoever is spending the least per student for daily operations is going to fair best, in the short term, when crunched for money.</p>
<p>Of course, that doesn’t mean that effect will last for long because if the places spending more are doing a better job they’ll be able to build greater wealth more quickly.</p>
<p>Another important number would be alumni giving rate-- more people from the school giving back, the more likely those people are not of the so-called “financial banking class” and the more likely that there will continue to be a strong support network. Similar to Obama’s army of small donations overpowering the old model of a few huge donors. The other reason this would be the case is because the more alumni who are donating back, the more those people still feel apart of the university community and if there is truly 0 social safety net and great unrest those people may flock back to the institutions still standing that they’re a part of for support.</p>
<p>But mostly, the question is still a bit nonsense. All of the Ivies have enough money in their endowments that major hits will possibly cause significant restructuring but none will be at serious risk of failing.</p>
<p>In this thought experiment I specifically said to exclude endowment by holding it equal for all ivies at $1billion. This is not unrealistic as a total crash ( as happened in Iceland or will happen this week in the U.K.) could wipe out even the largest endowment funds. Trying to get CC posters to think about things beyond endowment or acceptance ratio seems to be difficult. </p>
<p>Some other things to consider:
- Distance from urban unrest (think rodney king, last week in oakland)
- Transportation
- Desireability of education offered in future world
- Access to non monetary support systems ( food, energy etc)
- Prospects for the town they are located in.
- Ability to attract students from around the world given situation.</p>
<p>Hint: Read Dimitri Orlov to get a better idea of what I am talking about</p>
<p>Cornell isnt the worst ivy. Brown is the one and it’s shown in the USNEWS ranking. Also, I think Brown is the easiest ivy to get a 4.0. I mean, you can just take one easy class like calc 1 and get and A. Then take the rest of your classes pass/fail…and you will graduate with a 4.0 GPA from an ivy league institution!</p>
<p>First of all, confusedboy, I was joking, like Cayuga, who I’ve gotten to know as an ardent Cornell supporter and have had some fair fun sparring wtih.</p>
<p>Second off, Calc 1, or Math 9 at Brown is mandatory pass/fail-- because a course that easy doesn’t deserve an A according to the Math department.</p>
<p>Third, Brown doesn’t calculate GPA.</p>
<p>Fourth, any position or job that cared about GPA (i.e., only your first one) would look at your transcript and hardly take your claim to a 4.0 serious if they saw one course taken for grade.</p>
<p>Fifth, pass/fail is not something that’s looked down upon.</p>
<p>Sixth, the extensive problems with USNews have been discussed ad naseum on this webpage, in journals, in magazines, etc. There is no real good way to measure and rank these schools, and certainly using primarily input measures designed in such a way to create a list that people accept as definitive because it closely matches their expectations, while at the same time, allowing for variation each year so that there is some “excitement” and a reason to buy the new list, is not the way to go…</p>
<p>Seventh, I’m thinking the OP is now getting at more than the markets having trouble. Are you talking like… post-apocalyptic style society level problems here?</p>
<p>I’m not sure that’s thinking outside the box so much as a fun idea to write a fiction novel about…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes.</p>
<p>For the record, the school that spends the least amount of its operating budget out of its endowment is Cornell. Around 11 percent. Compare that to Dartmouth and Princeton, which support upwards of a third of their budget with investment income.</p>
<p>Personally, I would want to be at the school where I could learn to make wine and icecream so I could imbibe my way out of the ensuing misery.</p>
<p>Oh, I don’t know Cayuga. I have a fairly good idea on how to make both of those as a chemist (and avid Food Network watcher).</p>
<p>As for spending the least of its operating budget from endowment, are you including the extra money Cornell gets from the State of NY? Because we should also eliminate schools running primarily on government money and money slobbed off the top from larger research grants.</p>
<p>I just realized the above could be read wrong. I just mean to say, we need to eliminate money spent from the endowments interest, to some extent, government funding of any kind, research grants, etc.</p>
<p>We’d also need to favor schools that were hurt less from the economic downturn and schools which have had better returns on their endowments in recent years… say a 5 year growth being the mark to look at.</p>
<p>Take away government funding and the abillity to pay tuition and all of these schools will be turned upside down. Frankly, I’d rather be at the school where people are already living a little bit closer to the Earth.</p>
<p>But send me a PM after you have produced your first good Cabarnet Franc while figuring out how to best limit the risk of pests ruining your crop. Then we’ll see if you Brunos can join the club. 'Tis a shame that the soil in New England is so rocky.</p>
<p>I’ve no interest in wine making, Cayuga, but I’m sure if I did I could easily learn how to get it done. That’s the beauty of having a flexible, solid education. That being said, I make a mean vanilla ice cream.</p>
<p>Some other things to consider-- being closer to major city leads to more problems with an urban poor population, looting, violence. Less ability to close out the rest of the world. More likely to be the target of militant groups. Also more likely to get supplies, reconnect with society, etc. Access to main water ways could be interesting from a supply perspective. Where are there more factories or old factories or facilities that could become factories located? Mild winters are better for survival when modern conveniences are taken away.</p>
<p>As for Brunos joining the club, we’re doing just fine doing our own thing.</p>
<p>I thought BalletGirl made a very reasonable prediction a while back:</p>
<p>*In the next 100 years a number of radical changes will take place in the US and across the educational spectrum:</p>
<p>A rising ocean renders major areas along the east coast of the US unlivable. Harvard, MIT, Columbia, Brown, Penn and Yale are severely affected.</p>
<p>Columbia, seeking higher ground, merges with Princeton in an uneasy alliance. Alumni giving drops precipitiously. (Princeton alums think the merger “yucky”) There is a massive faculty exodus to Big Ten universities, as the already low quality of life in New Jersey rapidly deteriorates.</p>
<p>Harvard seeks a merger with up-country Dartmouth, but is spurned. Harvard, holding its nose, finally agrees to become affiliated with Cornell to create a new academic superpower high above Cayuga’s waters.</p>
<p>Ever-indepedent Dartmouth eventually integrates Amherst, who gets tired of its perennial Avis-like number two LAC status. Dartmouth, unable to withstand Amherst’s continual whinning, finally agrees to take them in. Dartmouth’s president describes the decision as “an act of charity”, emphasizing the school’s name will remain, forever, Dartmouth College.</p>
<p>In a fit of panic, Yale takes refuge in Middleton, CT through a partnership with Wesleyan. After several years operating as Yale Wesleyan University, the school reverts back to simply Yale. However, the institution is infected with a nascent Political Correctness (PC) cultural virus left over at Wes from the early 21st century and the quality of the academic program, especially in the Humanities and Social Sciences, erodes.</p>
<p>MIT simply closes… and nobody cares.</p>
<p>Brown finds very comfortable accomodation in Poughkeepsie, where with elegant Vassar College, the open curriculum takes deep root. After one of the largest campus expansions in US history, Vassar-Brown University, with its fashion-forward pink and brown colors, and its new motto, “Where the Exception is Always Exceptional”, becomes the first official “gay university” in the US.</p>
<p>Penn moves to Saint Louis and becomes part of WUStL. In announcing the new alliance, called WPUStL its presidents, in a joint statement, refer to a “common culture”. “Penn and WUSTL have for so long lived just outside the circle of greatness that we are both very comfortable there.”</p>
<p>The Main Line schools, Swarthmore, Haverford and Bryn Mawr merge to form SHBM College and enjoy great popularity as one of the only LACs with a sea coast location.</p>
<p>In a move to address students’ interest in cities, Carleton buys Macalester and turns Mac’s urban campus into its departments of International Affairs and Foreign Languages. Similarly, Williams merges with Wellesley (the last single sex hold-out) and treats the Wellesley, now seafront, campus as centers for oceanography and US maritime history and as a museum of the once popular and now defunct gender studies.</p>
<p>Berkeley and Stanford are leveled in a series of severe earthquakes. They merge to form a new quasi-public/private entity and relocate to Reno, now part of California. They derive a large part of their revenues through legalized gambling and become in the words of one dean, “richer than God.”</p>
<p>Grinnell College, with an ever-increasing endowment buys the Univeristy of Iowa and privatizes it. As one of the beneficiaries of the great Princeton-Columbia faculty exodus and with the country’s third highest endowment, it challenges Cornell-Harvard as the country’s top university.</p>
<p>The State of Michigan goes bankrupt affecting quality of academic and athletic programs at Big Blue.</p>
<p>Southern California is beset by borders wars with Mexico. UCLA, UCal Irvine and UCSD are sold to the Chinese, whose military, with the help of the US, attempts to quell border skirmishes with Mexico. This new system is renamed the Univesity of China, at Los Angeles, at Irvine and at San Diego respectively. Academic quality increases as the quality of the social life and the athletics programs plummet. Oddly, piano and violin are the only two musical instruments taught in these universities. The new UCLA becomes the new MIT.</p>
<p>Duke, in a pique of greed, agrees to be bought out by the entertainment giant Disney and becomes a kind of preppy Collegiate Gothic themepark. Lacrosse players are selected for “looks” and sociability with tourists. Its basketball team officially turns professional, integrates with the Charlotte Bobcats and is spun off as a separate money-making enterprise. Duke, and its basketball team, stocks trade on the NASDAQ. An avatar who looks like Ralph Lauren runs Duke. He is frequently heard saying, “One doesn’t need a real education today, one needs the illusion of an education and no one provides this patina better than Duke.”</p>
<p>University of Chicago is simply deemed obsolete and languishes as a fringe, dark, cult-like and unpopular school.</p>
<p>Most southern state universities are purchased by NFL teams with the college teams becoming official minor league teams of the “pros”. Ball players are paid employees, attendance in classes is purely optional. Academic quality increases dramatically.</p>
<p>Second tier LACs are purchased by larger state systems (e.g. Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Ohio). The most successful is the Ohio system which runs great liberal arts programs at Ohio State-Oberlin; Ohio State-Kenyon; Ohio State-Wooster; and Ohio State-Denison.</p>
<p>Top Universities:</p>
<p>Cornell-Harvard University
Grinnell University
Berkeley-Stanford University
University of China, Los Angeles</p>
<p>Top LACs:</p>
<p>Dartmouth College
SHBM College (Swarthmore Haverford Bryn Mawr College)
Carleton-Macalester College
Williams-Wellesley College*</p>
<p>Pretty funny story.</p>
<p>First to go is U-Penn, Urban location and lack of defensible geography or fortifications bring it down as the out-of-work riot against Donald Trumps Alma Mater.</p>
<p>Next in trouble is Columbia with and equaly venerable urban location. They withdraw to the core campus with it’s high fortresslike layout. Becomes a refuge for the intellectuals in NYC. Finance majors and economist are thrown to the crowds below as sacrifices.</p>
<p>The angry mobs move out from NYC both north and south looking for Bernie Madoff and the Hedgefunders. Princeton is a soft target and it’s lack of fortifications and weak suburban security services sucomb quickly to the mobs . Yale is tougher with its’s gothic fortifications, but the crowds rath is focused on Greenwich and beyond as the stronghold of the villians who brought down the country. Eventually the sucomb to the pitchforks and fire ment for the “masters of the universe”. </p>
<p>Brown is protected by organized crime as Providence once again becomes a mafia town. As anyone familier with the downfall of the USSR knows the criminal elements gains much power in the vacuum left by a financial colapse. Brown enjoys relative prosperity as it becomes the educational spot for the daughters and sons of the most powerful crime families. “Specialize Accounting” is a highly regarded academic discipline.</p>
<p>Harvard doesn’t fall but like columbia must retreat in to original quads and give up Alston and the riverfront. Boston is calmer than N.Y. and an off again on again battle with urban guerillas and financial vigilantes disruptes academic life.</p>
<p>Dartmouth becomes the official refuge of the children of Wall Street and the upper classes as it’s location and the outdoor skills of the students and faculty help it greatly. Dartmouth thrives and intiates year round classes as most of its students can’t return home and many of their parents are on the run. They officially disown, Paulson and Gheitner purging all records of thier enrollment.</p>
<p>Cornell becomes the great gathering point of scientists, and intellectuals from all over the NE. It’s remote location, and defensible position with newly installed drawbridges over the gorges gives it a feeling of safety and peace not found elseware. The great agricultural lands surrounding the campus, feed the inhabitants and great reveling is accomplished with the local wine. From here, the new order is hatched and enlightenment is spread throughout the land as a new country is established based not on the founding fathers but on the principles of Andrew and Ezra. The star spangled banner is replace with “Far above Cayugas Waters” and the World is renewed</p>