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> when Harvard University said it can't afford journal publishers' price Harvard's endowment is, according to Wikipedia, $39.2 billion as of FY 2018. My first
by waterhouse 8y ago
> when Harvard University said it can't afford journal publishers' price
Harvard's endowment is, according to Wikipedia, $39.2 billion as of FY 2018. My first reflex was to say that "can't afford" must be a relative term...
A closer look at the article says: "A memo from Harvard Library ... warning it could no longer afford the price hikes imposed by many large journal publishers, which bill the library around $3.5m a year." So I could believe that the Harvard Library is given a certain budget by the main Harvard organization, and that this budget is insufficient to support that bill plus other unavoidable recurring expenses.
- acdha 8y agoYou're also missing the distinction between an endowment and a revenue stream. Harvard has almost $40B in assets but they are going to be making much smaller annual returns on that — probably 10% at best — and the reason why people donate those funds is to support academic work, not boost profit margins for large companies. Harvard's academics are providing an enormous amount of unpaid work for journals so it's dubious that they are jumping to cut a big check for that rather than, say, scholarships, equipment, etc.
- waterhouse 8y agoI was aware of that distinction while writing my comment. Even if only $30B of Harvard's assets are financial investments, and even if they earn just 5% annually from that, then that's $1.5 billion per year, so $3.5 million is just 0.23% of their income. I'm not saying $3.5 million isn't absurdly high. I'm just objecting to the statement "Harvard University [itself] ... can't afford ...", which is journalistic hyperbole.