It would mean for one thing, that universities would have to change the way they fundraise and accept donations. A lot of endowment funds are earmarked for part

It would mean for one thing, that universities would have to change the way they fundraise and accept donations. A lot of endowment funds are earmarked for particular purposes. Which could be anything from an endowed professorship to a large donation for a new building. Not too long ago, Harvard got $400 million for a new engineering school. Would that same donor have been happy to give the same amount for a scholarship fund? Probably not. I work in university publishing. We have a fund that helps defray the production costs of some books. It was endowed to us for that purpose, and the funds can only be used for that. College endowments are made up of hundreds of such funds. While it would be great if we had bigger scholarship funds, people who think universities should spend down their endowments have no idea how these things actually work. And at least some portion of the government spending is going to pay tuition, at least for graduate students getting RA stipends. That money comes out of research funds.