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If you're sitting on a minimum of $3.5B in endowment (Brown), up to $34.5B (Harvard), why would you need to expand? Besides, being "elite" is part of the brand

If you're sitting on a minimum of $3.5B in endowment (Brown), up to $34.5B (Harvard), why would you need to expand? Besides, being "elite" is part of the brand. Start letting everyone in, and the Ivy League becomes just another football conference.

dcolkitt 7y ago
> being "elite" is part of the brand. Exactly. And what public policy needs to do is revoke the non-profit status of schools that fail to make any effort to expand despite having an abundance of resources and qualified candidates. Harvard could easily accommodate 20,000 undergrads given the size and quality of its applicant pool. That fact that it doesn't spend a penny of its $30 billion endowment doing so reveals that its mission is brand management, not education. And that's perfectly fine. But it shouldn't enjoy a tax-advantaged status predicated on the make-believe that its a philanthropic organization.
- sokoloff 7y ago
  Where do you expect Harvard could house the additional 13K undergrads near campus? I live walking distance to Harvard campus and I can tell you that I can't imagine a good answer. (Unstated above is that I believe that undergrad is fundamentally an in-person experience.)
  - dillonmckay 7y ago
    Satellite campus? Buy up existing hotels? The George Washington University has purchased many hotels and condos and converted them to student housing, and that is downtown DC real estate. Works well when you pay no property taxes.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - disjhshava 7y ago
    Doesn't Harvard own a bunch of prime real estate? Tax free, even. How tall is the average building on that land?
- doctorpangloss 7y ago
  > Harvard could easily accommodate 20,000 undergrads given the size and quality of its applicant pool. Increasing the class size would be good. But Danny Rubin isn't going to be able to teach screen writing to 120 kids instead of 12, even if he actually wanted to. RJ Tarrant can't expand his personal Classics section beyond 15. And the undergraduate animal transplant surgery class (12-15 students)? How, pray tell, will that scale? If you wanted to 10x the size of the class... I don't know if there's a single place on Earth that conducts 10 transplants, human or large animal, in one building, at the same time. Not everything can be scaled. Not even "not scalable" things can be scaled with money, even a lot of it. A more interesting conversation is why nonetheless billionaires do a bad job at education, despite (not because of) all the money. I think this thinking is part of it. It also shows a lack of understanding of what makes Harvard special. It's not just "brand management."
  - HenryKissinger 7y ago
    The solution is simple: hire more faculty, build more and taller buildings. Build more dorms. They can afford it. And if their mission was education, they would do it.
    - ctdonath 7y ago
      You can’t just hire more top talent. “Elite” is “best”, not “more”.
      - HenryKissinger 7y ago
        You absolutely can hire more top talent.
      - disjhshava 7y ago
        The academic job market is so tight in most fields that random universities in the middle of nowhere get hundreds of applicants for a single tenure-track job. If you go back 100 years ago you would find that Harvard was a lot less selective (there were far fewer academics), but it was still elite. Overall, society isn't putting enough money into research. Elite universities hiring more faculty would be a great thing, in my estimation.
- cies 7y ago
  > And that's perfectly fine. Under capitalism. :)
- disjhshava 7y ago
  The US also gives nonprofit status to organizations that do stuff like buy expensive paintings and build megachurches. There's no general requirement that the nonprofits need to be using their money in the highest-utility manner. If such a requirement existed, I don't think elite universities should be the first organizations to crack down on.
GaryNumanVevo 7y ago
Endowments really need to go. Put that towards paying for student's education instead of locking it up.
- pmiller2 7y ago
  Theoretically, endowments are _supposed_ to be paying for students’ education.
- gnicholas 7y ago
  If endowments go, so do good professors. My wife was recruited by a couple institutions last year. One of our key concerns about one institution was the endowment. Tenure is not nearly as valuable at a institution that is not on strong financial footing.
  - NTDF9 7y ago
    Why are endowments so important for Professors? They're not seeing a dime from that anyway.
    - gnicholas 7y ago
      If a university has a strong endowment, it provides assurance that the operating budget will be buffered against economic downturns. If universities did away with endowments (and did not replace them with mind-boggling amounts of insurance), it would increase the chance that professors' jobs and/or salaries would be at risk. Unlike most jobs, academic positions can last for half a century, so it is reasonable to look far into the future when assessing the desirability of a particular position.

dcolkitt 7y ago

> being "elite" is part of the brand. Exactly. And what public policy needs to do is revoke the non-profit status of schools that fail to make any effort to expand despite having an abundance of resources and qualified candidates. Harvard could easily accommodate 20,000 undergrads given the size and quality of its applicant pool. That fact that it doesn't spend a penny of its $30 billion endowment doing so reveals that its mission is brand management, not education. And that's perfectly fine. But it shouldn't enjoy a tax-advantaged status predicated on the make-believe that its a philanthropic organization.

sokoloff 7y ago
Where do you expect Harvard could house the additional 13K undergrads near campus? I live walking distance to Harvard campus and I can tell you that I can't imagine a good answer. (Unstated above is that I believe that undergrad is fundamentally an in-person experience.)
- dillonmckay 7y ago
  Satellite campus? Buy up existing hotels? The George Washington University has purchased many hotels and condos and converted them to student housing, and that is downtown DC real estate. Works well when you pay no property taxes.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- disjhshava 7y ago
  Doesn't Harvard own a bunch of prime real estate? Tax free, even. How tall is the average building on that land?
doctorpangloss 7y ago
> Harvard could easily accommodate 20,000 undergrads given the size and quality of its applicant pool. Increasing the class size would be good. But Danny Rubin isn't going to be able to teach screen writing to 120 kids instead of 12, even if he actually wanted to. RJ Tarrant can't expand his personal Classics section beyond 15. And the undergraduate animal transplant surgery class (12-15 students)? How, pray tell, will that scale? If you wanted to 10x the size of the class... I don't know if there's a single place on Earth that conducts 10 transplants, human or large animal, in one building, at the same time. Not everything can be scaled. Not even "not scalable" things can be scaled with money, even a lot of it. A more interesting conversation is why nonetheless billionaires do a bad job at education, despite (not because of) all the money. I think this thinking is part of it. It also shows a lack of understanding of what makes Harvard special. It's not just "brand management."
- HenryKissinger 7y ago
  The solution is simple: hire more faculty, build more and taller buildings. Build more dorms. They can afford it. And if their mission was education, they would do it.
  - ctdonath 7y ago
    You can’t just hire more top talent. “Elite” is “best”, not “more”.
    - HenryKissinger 7y ago
      You absolutely can hire more top talent.
    - disjhshava 7y ago
      The academic job market is so tight in most fields that random universities in the middle of nowhere get hundreds of applicants for a single tenure-track job. If you go back 100 years ago you would find that Harvard was a lot less selective (there were far fewer academics), but it was still elite. Overall, society isn't putting enough money into research. Elite universities hiring more faculty would be a great thing, in my estimation.
cies 7y ago
> And that's perfectly fine. Under capitalism. :)
disjhshava 7y ago
The US also gives nonprofit status to organizations that do stuff like buy expensive paintings and build megachurches. There's no general requirement that the nonprofits need to be using their money in the highest-utility manner. If such a requirement existed, I don't think elite universities should be the first organizations to crack down on.

GaryNumanVevo 7y ago

Endowments really need to go. Put that towards paying for student's education instead of locking it up.

pmiller2 7y ago
Theoretically, endowments are _supposed_ to be paying for students’ education.
gnicholas 7y ago
If endowments go, so do good professors. My wife was recruited by a couple institutions last year. One of our key concerns about one institution was the endowment. Tenure is not nearly as valuable at a institution that is not on strong financial footing.
- NTDF9 7y ago
  Why are endowments so important for Professors? They're not seeing a dime from that anyway.
  - gnicholas 7y ago
    If a university has a strong endowment, it provides assurance that the operating budget will be buffered against economic downturns. If universities did away with endowments (and did not replace them with mind-boggling amounts of insurance), it would increase the chance that professors' jobs and/or salaries would be at risk. Unlike most jobs, academic positions can last for half a century, so it is reasonable to look far into the future when assessing the desirability of a particular position.