16 ms·

Financially, Harvard is a hedge fund that also happens to own a university

by kylec 8y ago

rajacombinator 8y ago
And they’re somewhat of an underperformer in that regard. “...its overall natural-resources investments have done poorly.” University funds generally don’t pay well enough to compete for top talent. They shouldn’t be making exotic bets like this.
- thfuran 8y ago
  I don't really think statements about "university funds generally" apply to Harvard or, say, Stanford.
ordinaryradical 8y ago
I honestly think I wouldn't have a problem with this if they zeroed out tuition for students. That is the glaring absurdity of the Ivy Leagues. I was in a program that more or less guaranteed some portion of its graduates to be perpetually in debt because the skills imparted, while taught by some of the most brilliant practitioners in the world, did not translate into real world earnings. I hate the idea of college being purely an exchange of money for future earning potential, but programs like mine I think are unethical at cost even as they are virtuous in learning. Our culture needs non-STEM genius, that keeps the republic alive. Forcing people into a cauldron of debt for it is reprehensible.
- whitepoplar 8y ago
  I think we need to rethink the concept of a university from first principles: How much does it actually cost to provide the best education in the world? A sizable library, an old building with empty rooms, and professors? I'd bet you could make instruction 5x better with 5x lower costs than we have today. The real problem isn't building/finding a campus, though, it's figuring out how to make the cheap version of Harvard more prestigious than Harvard itself. Universities run on prestige and people pay vast amounts of money for social signaling (to others and even themselves).
  - polskibus 8y ago
    You need large grants and already renowned professors. I'm guessing that's what is really expensive. The problem we have today is that the gap between academia research jobs and the industry is possibly the widest ever, at least in some professions. Deep learning is just one example, but the generic Data Science trend in the industry has been syphoning people away from research on a larger scale.
  - rubidium 8y ago
    Depends on the domain. Undergrad humanities? Sure a community of professors and books is sufficient. If it's graduate education in the sciences or engineering, then world class research laboratories are required.
    - hopler 8y ago
      Not really. The research is expensive. The education isn't. Grad students are employees of research labs, not guests.
  - tunesmith 8y ago
    Part of the problem is that it isn't just the best education. One person might have the most brilliant idea in the history of mankind, but if enacting it requires collaboration, they'll need a network of people to help them. Smart people, if the idea is counter-intuitive. So any solution would have to include the development of strong ties between the students.
  - zdragnar 8y ago
    Back when I was in school in the early naughties, it was a given that, if you were a humanities student, your tuition largely subsidized the STEM students, because your degree required virtually no specialized equipment, just a building, a professor, and some administrative overhead. STEM students required all sorts of wild equipment, some so specialized and sensitive that the buildings had to have extra protections built in so they weren't bothered by vibration or electromagnetic interference from nearby lightrail trains. Their tuition wouldn't cover that. Of course, the school also splurged on pointless real estate expansions, a relatively empty, but massive, student "union" building, intense administrative overhead, sports stadiums paid for by adding on hundreds to student fees (which of course weren't part of tuition, but you had to pay them anyway), and so forth. If you're a humanities student, you get the short end of the stick from many different directions- paying more than your education costs to support others, for a degree that will earn substantially less than others, which likely has fewer industries that specifically require your degree (putting you in more competition for said jobs against students with other similar degrees).
- c0nfused 8y ago
  In the last few years most of the Ivy League schools have quietly gone to a complete coverage for students in need of financial aid. Harvard is among those who do. Turns out the problem is now further down the academic scale. Source: https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculator https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculat...
- kapurs151 8y ago
  Your point is valid, but most Ivy Leagues are need-blind for U.S. citizens (Harvard is need-blind for internationals too) at the undergraduate level and are known for relatively generous financial aid policies [1]. I think these schools are a drop in the proverbial ocean of generating crippling student debt, even for kids graduating from humanities majors. [1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/15/student-borrowers-from-these-10-colleges-graduate-with-the-least-debt.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/15/student-borrowers-from-these...
  - uberman 8y ago
    Just to be clear. While, Harvard has some great financial aid policies, the concept of "need blind" applies to a decision to admit, not about the availability or generosity of financial aid (in general).
  - ordinaryradical 8y ago
    > I think these schools are a drop in the proverbial ocean of generating crippling student debt, even for kids graduating from humanities majors. I may have been unclear, but I was talking about my experience in a graduate program, not undergrad. Obviously the Ivy Leagues are not the only ones guilty here, but my original point was that I have no problem with their giant endowments provided they actually liberate undergraduate and post-graduate students from debt obligations. I think the Ivies could actually become a great model for the U.S. with a little more effort here.
- runako 8y ago
  According to Harvard (https://www.harvard.edu/about-harvard/harvard-glance https://www.harvard.edu/about-harvard/harvard-glance): "The Harvard College financial aid program requires no contribution from Harvard families with annual incomes below $65,000; asks from 0 to 10% of income for those with incomes up to $150,000; and expects proportionally more from families with incomes above $150,000." If your family makes <$150k, it sounds like Harvard costs up to about as much as the (public) University of Minnesota charges in-state residents. (Depending on your situation, Harvard may cost substantially less.) If you borrowed half of the $15k annually (the max 10% of $150k income), that's not an insane burden when paid over 30 years. This seems fairly balanced. Granted they could zero out fees for families further up the income scale, but on the other hand "rich kids go to Harvard free" is maybe not the best use of the money.
  - ordinaryradical 8y ago
    This seems to be undergraduate only. Am I mistaken? I was talking about graduate students as well.
    - HarryHirsch 8y ago
      In any halfway decent graduate program the students are paid graduate stipends from teaching assignments and grants awarded to the advisor. That's important! If you are asked to pay for graduate tution, the program is worthless. Corollary: taught Masters programs are worthless, they are moneyspinners for the university,.
      - hopler 8y ago
        Paid Masters programs are not worthless, because employers pay for masters degree holders.
        barry-cotter 8y ago
        Not enough in most cases to make up for the earnings lost during the time spent studying, never mind the tuition. MBAs aren’t worth it outside the top tier. There are fields where a Master’s is a de facto requirement but they’re generally prestige fields where the money is crap in any case, for at least five years after graduation, for people with rich parents or spouses. Think publishing, fashion, art curation or working in the aid industry. There are also fields where a doctorate is the entry level qualification like biotech, materials science etc. even in the private sector, but that's what happens when a there are more than ten times as many PhDs producer as there are academic jobs for.
- viburnum 8y ago
  Harvard doesn't care about education, they care about being at the center of the reproduction of the elite class. They're explicit about this. Their admissions and tuition policies reflect it.
jartelt 8y ago
Except they get better tax treatment than a hedge fund since they are a "non-profit".

Financially, Harvard is a hedge fund that also happens to own a university

by kylec 8y ago

Financially, Harvard is a hedge fund that also happens to own a university

And they’re somewhat of an underperformer in that regard. “...its overall natural-resources investments have done poorly.” University funds generally don’t pay well enough to compete for top talent. They shouldn’t be making exotic bets like this.

thfuran 8y ago
I don't really think statements about "university funds generally" apply to Harvard or, say, Stanford.

ordinaryradical 8y ago

I honestly think I wouldn't have a problem with this if they zeroed out tuition for students. That is the glaring absurdity of the Ivy Leagues. I was in a program that more or less guaranteed some portion of its graduates to be perpetually in debt because the skills imparted, while taught by some of the most brilliant practitioners in the world, did not translate into real world earnings. I hate the idea of college being purely an exchange of money for future earning potential, but programs like mine I think are unethical at cost even as they are virtuous in learning. Our culture needs non-STEM genius, that keeps the republic alive. Forcing people into a cauldron of debt for it is reprehensible.

whitepoplar 8y ago
I think we need to rethink the concept of a university from first principles: How much does it actually cost to provide the best education in the world? A sizable library, an old building with empty rooms, and professors? I'd bet you could make instruction 5x better with 5x lower costs than we have today. The real problem isn't building/finding a campus, though, it's figuring out how to make the cheap version of Harvard more prestigious than Harvard itself. Universities run on prestige and people pay vast amounts of money for social signaling (to others and even themselves).
- polskibus 8y ago
  You need large grants and already renowned professors. I'm guessing that's what is really expensive. The problem we have today is that the gap between academia research jobs and the industry is possibly the widest ever, at least in some professions. Deep learning is just one example, but the generic Data Science trend in the industry has been syphoning people away from research on a larger scale.
- rubidium 8y ago
  Depends on the domain. Undergrad humanities? Sure a community of professors and books is sufficient. If it's graduate education in the sciences or engineering, then world class research laboratories are required.
  - hopler 8y ago
    Not really. The research is expensive. The education isn't. Grad students are employees of research labs, not guests.
- tunesmith 8y ago
  Part of the problem is that it isn't just the best education. One person might have the most brilliant idea in the history of mankind, but if enacting it requires collaboration, they'll need a network of people to help them. Smart people, if the idea is counter-intuitive. So any solution would have to include the development of strong ties between the students.
- zdragnar 8y ago
  Back when I was in school in the early naughties, it was a given that, if you were a humanities student, your tuition largely subsidized the STEM students, because your degree required virtually no specialized equipment, just a building, a professor, and some administrative overhead. STEM students required all sorts of wild equipment, some so specialized and sensitive that the buildings had to have extra protections built in so they weren't bothered by vibration or electromagnetic interference from nearby lightrail trains. Their tuition wouldn't cover that. Of course, the school also splurged on pointless real estate expansions, a relatively empty, but massive, student "union" building, intense administrative overhead, sports stadiums paid for by adding on hundreds to student fees (which of course weren't part of tuition, but you had to pay them anyway), and so forth. If you're a humanities student, you get the short end of the stick from many different directions- paying more than your education costs to support others, for a degree that will earn substantially less than others, which likely has fewer industries that specifically require your degree (putting you in more competition for said jobs against students with other similar degrees).
c0nfused 8y ago
In the last few years most of the Ivy League schools have quietly gone to a complete coverage for students in need of financial aid. Harvard is among those who do. Turns out the problem is now further down the academic scale. Source: https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculator https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculat...
kapurs151 8y ago
Your point is valid, but most Ivy Leagues are need-blind for U.S. citizens (Harvard is need-blind for internationals too) at the undergraduate level and are known for relatively generous financial aid policies [1]. I think these schools are a drop in the proverbial ocean of generating crippling student debt, even for kids graduating from humanities majors. [1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/15/student-borrowers-from-these-10-colleges-graduate-with-the-least-debt.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/15/student-borrowers-from-these...
- uberman 8y ago
  Just to be clear. While, Harvard has some great financial aid policies, the concept of "need blind" applies to a decision to admit, not about the availability or generosity of financial aid (in general).
- ordinaryradical 8y ago
  > I think these schools are a drop in the proverbial ocean of generating crippling student debt, even for kids graduating from humanities majors. I may have been unclear, but I was talking about my experience in a graduate program, not undergrad. Obviously the Ivy Leagues are not the only ones guilty here, but my original point was that I have no problem with their giant endowments provided they actually liberate undergraduate and post-graduate students from debt obligations. I think the Ivies could actually become a great model for the U.S. with a little more effort here.
runako 8y ago
According to Harvard (https://www.harvard.edu/about-harvard/harvard-glance https://www.harvard.edu/about-harvard/harvard-glance): "The Harvard College financial aid program requires no contribution from Harvard families with annual incomes below $65,000; asks from 0 to 10% of income for those with incomes up to $150,000; and expects proportionally more from families with incomes above $150,000." If your family makes <$150k, it sounds like Harvard costs up to about as much as the (public) University of Minnesota charges in-state residents. (Depending on your situation, Harvard may cost substantially less.) If you borrowed half of the $15k annually (the max 10% of $150k income), that's not an insane burden when paid over 30 years. This seems fairly balanced. Granted they could zero out fees for families further up the income scale, but on the other hand "rich kids go to Harvard free" is maybe not the best use of the money.
- ordinaryradical 8y ago
  This seems to be undergraduate only. Am I mistaken? I was talking about graduate students as well.
  - HarryHirsch 8y ago
    In any halfway decent graduate program the students are paid graduate stipends from teaching assignments and grants awarded to the advisor. That's important! If you are asked to pay for graduate tution, the program is worthless. Corollary: taught Masters programs are worthless, they are moneyspinners for the university,.
    - hopler 8y ago
      Paid Masters programs are not worthless, because employers pay for masters degree holders.
      - barry-cotter 8y ago
        Not enough in most cases to make up for the earnings lost during the time spent studying, never mind the tuition. MBAs aren’t worth it outside the top tier. There are fields where a Master’s is a de facto requirement but they’re generally prestige fields where the money is crap in any case, for at least five years after graduation, for people with rich parents or spouses. Think publishing, fashion, art curation or working in the aid industry. There are also fields where a doctorate is the entry level qualification like biotech, materials science etc. even in the private sector, but that's what happens when a there are more than ten times as many PhDs producer as there are academic jobs for.
viburnum 8y ago
Harvard doesn't care about education, they care about being at the center of the reproduction of the elite class. They're explicit about this. Their admissions and tuition policies reflect it.

jartelt 8y ago

Except they get better tax treatment than a hedge fund since they are a "non-profit".