<p>Bloomberg.com:</a> News</p>
<p>Any idea when those class size expansions would come into effect if they are decided upon? I like Yale's size as it is, I'd hate to see it become the next "big Ivy" with resources streched too thin.</p>
<p>even with 6000 students, Yale will still be smaller than Harvard.</p>
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Any idea when those class size expansions would come into effect if they are decided upon?
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<p>Once the two new residential colleges are built, I imagine.</p>
<p>How long will that take?</p>
<p>Yale would still be smaller than Harvard, but even so, it will be worse than it was before. That's like saying "taxes in the US are high, but at least they're not as high as in Europe". Meanwhile, I'd just prefer lower taxes... and a small Yale.</p>
<p>Well considering they're still only in the talking-about-it phase, probably a good few years: Yale</a> Daily News - Corporation to meet once more before Feb. vote</p>
<p>President Levin: "People are not going to be choosing between Yale and Harvard based on money."</p>
<p>In other words, they are going to match or exceed Harvard's financial aid move.</p>
<p>The new spending rule means that Yale will be spending a boatload of money on new academic programs, free tuition for art and drama students (they already made the unprecedented move of providing free tuition for music students a couple of years ago), and massive financial aid programs for undergraduates.</p>
<p>The residential college expansion plans are upwards of 5-10 years away to completion, IIRC</p>
<p>That 5-10 year timeframe may be accelerated given that Yale will now be awash in money. Harvard, Princeton and others already spend a larger fraction of their endowment, so they won't be able to match Yale's move.</p>
<p>A snippet of the story:
"Yale Will Increase Spending From $22.5 Billion Fund (Update1)</p>
<p>By Brian K. Sullivan and Matthew Keenan</p>
<p>Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Yale University, after reaping investment gains, will increase the amount it spends from its endowment by about 37 percent in fiscal 2009 to spur research and financial aid.</p>
<p>Yale, in New Haven, Connecticut, will spend $1.15 billion of its $22.5 billion endowment, allowing for more financial aid, scientific and medical research, and a potential expansion of the number of undergraduates, according to a statement released today. Yale, under a new formula, said it will spend 4.5 percent to 6 percent of assets each fiscal year.</p>
<p>Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which has the largest U.S. endowment at $34.9 billion, announced plans in December to expand its financial aid offerings amid growing criticism in Congress. Iowa Senator Charles Grassley, a Republican, has said schools should spend more of their money and take added steps to reduce costs.</p>
<p><code>Exceptionally strong investment returns in recent years have led to a lower than anticipated payout rate from the endowment,'' Yale's President Richard Levin said.</code>We have been agonizing about this for the last two years.''</p>
<p>^Harvard, Princeton and others already spend a larger fraction of their endowment, so they won't be able to match Yale's move.</p>
<p>princeton has a higher endowment per student than yale, and by a fairly substantial margin, so it is more than able to match any moves by yale.</p>
<p>Princeton and Yale have similar endowments per student. Harvard's is much lower than either of the two. Also, endowment per student is not directly comparable when the differences are so small (e.g., $1.9M versus $1.8M). The only point here is that Yale is getting a cash influx of $300+M per year. No university will be able to even come close to matching that, not because they don't have money, but because they were already spending at a higher rate.</p>
<p>That said, yes, Princeton will probably be able to match Harvard and Yale's new initiative in terms of financial aid, but not necessarily in terms of other initiatives. I doubt anyone else will be able to match HYP. For example, Penn just announced new financial aid a couple weeks ago, but in terms of aid per student, it was still only about 50% as generous as Harvard's initiative. Beyond HYP, other universities just don't have the necessary funds.</p>
<p>Curious question here: How do the Ivies get the money? Over 60% of Yale students get some sort of Financial aid, so tuition fees can't be the main source of income.
Does anyone know?</p>
<p>The enormous endowments (financial funds built up over time) at HYP and MIT cover most of the cost of educating undergraduates. They pay for professors' salaries, huge library staffs, etc. HYP/MIT have huge endowments per student which enable them to spend a lot more per student than places like Northwestern, Texas, UPenn or Michigan can. </p>
<p>The other source of money is research funding. The Ivies + other elites get hundreds of millions of dollars of federal dollars for research. However, most of that money goes towards research, not for undergraduate education. But research per student does matter in the sense that students have access to research opportunities. Caltech, Yale and MIT lead in terms of the amount of research funding per undergraduate.</p>
<p>investments from endowments, and donations</p>
<p>I think Stanford definitely could afford to increase their aid packages...otherwise I fear they will lose a lot of quality students.</p>
<p>Yeah, I hear donations from alumni are pretty high as well? That's pretty interesting.</p>
<p>halcykon: just to give you some background, when I graduated, Y's endowment was huge $2B. As of end of 07, it has mushroomed to an enormous $23B. Through extremely wise and fortunate investment strategies, the endowment's growth has transformed the face of Yale and what it can do for future generations. As a matter of fact, the proposed residential college expansion is slated to be the most expensive construction project in the history of CT ($650M).</p>
<p>In the last few years, Yale SPENT more than many universities' entire endowments.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the responses!
I did a bit of researching with helpful keywords from you guys and found some really interesting articles. In fact, they got more and more interesting as I clicked from one link to the next!</p>
<p>I first went straight to the source, which is always a great place to start.
Yale</a> Daily News - Alumni question merit of donating
Yale</a> Daily News - Alumni ponder the merits of giving</p>
<p>They both mentioned Ben Stein (yes THE Ben Stein; it's really crazy since my friend and I were talking about him this morning in school!) who criticized donations for Yale when they could go to a better cause. He graduated valedictorian from Y Law.
Three</a> Cheers (and a Big Question) for Yale
All</a> Right, Already: A Second Look at Yale (a response after some criticism from alumni)
You're</a> Rich? Terrific. Now Pay Up. - New York Times
Ben</a> Stein - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</p>
<p>Then I read up on David Swensen, the Economic GURU of the world. Adding to what T26EF said about the investments, Swensen helped Yale earn about $8 billion in investments; an whopping annual 18% return on average.
For</a> Yale’s Money Man, a Higher Calling
Quote from article "...during those two decades, the university’s endowment had grown to $14 billion from $1.3 billion."</p>
<p>REALLY interesting articles. If you have a spare hour I recommend you read them!</p>
<p>EDIT: For some reason you need to log in to NY Times now.. My apologies, but somehow I luckily found the articles in a grace period where NY Times didn't need a log in? Anyhow it's well worth if for a free sign up anyways.
Nevermind. It has something to do with the cookies. Perhaps NYTimes has registered me as browsing too much.. -.-</p>
<p>Just a quick update on this thread-- since it seems like I killed it!
Yale</a> Cuts Costs for Families and Students</p>