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Not quite. It's a circular system. Money goes places like university tuition, housing, and dining. "To the students" means "to pay the university." I've walke

by wegs 7y ago

Not quite. It's a circular system. Money goes places like university tuition, housing, and dining. "To the students" means "to pay the university." I've walked through the complex and bizarre accounting, but the short story is: * The university wants "general" funds, which it can use to pay million-dollar salaries and for fancy dining establishments, rather than restricted funds. * Almost all money comes in as restricted funds (e.g. for teaching, research, or otherwise supporting the mission of the school). * There is a complex network of funnels to go from restricted funds to general. For example, tuition is artificially set high. It's then discounted to anyone who can't afford it. However, government research grants, fellowships, etc. pay the full tab. If the cost to educate a student is $20k, the university will have a sticker price of $50k. For deep pockets sources, it will take $20k to educate the student, and funnel $30k into general funds. To make donors feel better, it will then advertise it actually costs $200k to educate that student (!). With research, the channels are "overhead," which is often set at around 60% of elite schools. These are well-polished channels. Any money coming in for students, you can assume is ultimately landing in someone else's pocket. It's just passing through tuition, housing, or similar along the way, the price of which is always decoupled from reality (in both directions, actually, since it's just a financial game).

eesmith 7y ago
"To the students" was supposed to be my shorthand for this quote from the original article: “Harvard is actually allocating 100% of the funds to financial assistance for students to meet their urgent needs in the face of this pandemic.” I see that my shorthand was ambiguous at best. While I understand your point, my point is that surely Harvard - with its huge endowments and staff expertise - could easily have planned for this contingency. Did they really do no planning, or did they assume the government would step in and give them money? Concerning your point more directly, did they not consider asking for any of the $41 billion(!) endowment (in 2019) to include being used for this sort of contingency?
- wegs 7y ago
  Harvard saw free money, and they grabbed it. It went to "financial assistance to students," some of which I'm sure was what it was (e.g. they presumably helped students with housing or transportation or what-not), and some of which was surely circular (they billed students for a service, paid for that with public funds, converting public money to private money). I have no idea the split. But yes, Harvard has plenty of funds to weather this crisis. But no, it didn't get there by turning free money down, or being particularly picky about where money comes from. The only time Harvard will turn down money is if it is perceived to impact their brand. That's usually done be returning money if they get caught (as with Epstein), but they have been known to do it preemptively in select cases.
  - eesmith 7y ago
    Sure, but how is that different from being greedy? That is, the Forbes piece appears to be trying to counter the argument made by Trevor Noah and other that Harvard is being greedy.

by wegs 7y ago

eesmith 7y ago

"To the students" was supposed to be my shorthand for this quote from the original article: “Harvard is actually allocating 100% of the funds to financial assistance for students to meet their urgent needs in the face of this pandemic.” I see that my shorthand was ambiguous at best. While I understand your point, my point is that surely Harvard - with its huge endowments and staff expertise - could easily have planned for this contingency. Did they really do no planning, or did they assume the government would step in and give them money? Concerning your point more directly, did they not consider asking for any of the $41 billion(!) endowment (in 2019) to include being used for this sort of contingency?

wegs 7y ago
Harvard saw free money, and they grabbed it. It went to "financial assistance to students," some of which I'm sure was what it was (e.g. they presumably helped students with housing or transportation or what-not), and some of which was surely circular (they billed students for a service, paid for that with public funds, converting public money to private money). I have no idea the split. But yes, Harvard has plenty of funds to weather this crisis. But no, it didn't get there by turning free money down, or being particularly picky about where money comes from. The only time Harvard will turn down money is if it is perceived to impact their brand. That's usually done be returning money if they get caught (as with Epstein), but they have been known to do it preemptively in select cases.
- eesmith 7y ago
  Sure, but how is that different from being greedy? That is, the Forbes piece appears to be trying to counter the argument made by Trevor Noah and other that Harvard is being greedy.