3 ms·

Believe it or not, elite universities are reaching similar heights. MIT is at roughly $20M endowment per faculty member. All caveats apply. 20≠100, employees m

Believe it or not, elite universities are reaching similar heights. MIT is at roughly $20M endowment per faculty member. All caveats apply. 20≠100, employees might include staff and grad students, etc. Still, I would never advise anyone to donate to any institution like this.

rmorey 2y ago
Looks like Princeton tops the Ivy League (and perhaps all universities?) at $27M per faculty member. I often like to call it "a hedge fund with hobbies"
csa 2y ago
> Believe it or not, elite universities are reaching similar heights. MIT is at roughly $20M endowment per faculty member. If you ran MIT, what do you think a good endowment amount per faculty member would be? I’m not sure $20m is far off from optimal. I might go down to $15m, with an annual draw down $750k so (5%) per year to cover burdened labor rate of average professor and certain percentage (half?) to go to “support” (i.e., everything else, including libraries, staff, maintenance, maybe grad student funding, etc.). Even that seems sort of on the tight side.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  $20M might be optimal if tuition was $0 and they didn't receive any research grants.
  - csa 2y ago
    > if tuition was $0 https://sfs.mit.edu/undergraduate-students/the-cost-of-attendance/making-mit-affordable/ https://sfs.mit.edu/undergraduate-students/the-cost-of-atten... I couldn’t find the number quickly, but tuition is not a big funding source for the university. They are quite generous with tuition grants. This might not be true for the MBA program, but probably is for many/most other programs. > … and they didn't receive any research grants. Yeah. This is where I think one needs to look at exactly where expenses go. Grants don’t go as far as some folks think they do. Anyway, what’s your number with things being as they are? I’m still ok with $15-20m, and I am not particularly fond of university admins and the way they run things.
    - elijahwright 2y ago
      Indirect cost, how I loathe thee…
    - musicale 2y ago
      > tuition is not a big funding source for the university Princeton reported a paltry ~$154.5M in net tuition and fees for FY2023, which seems low ($18K/student.) They claimed $20K "net cost after aid" for students on financial aid. https://finance.princeton.edu/report-treasurer https://finance.princeton.edu/report-treasurer https://www.princeton.edu/news/2023/03/31/princeton-trustees-set-2023-24-budget-increasing-undergraduate-financial-aid-more https://www.princeton.edu/news/2023/03/31/princeton-trustees...
- grobbyy 2y ago
  I'd go down to about $2M, which is where MIT was at a quarter century ago, when it was it's prime. Being answerable to funding sources, tuition, etc. is a good thing. Having money to soon off from is not.
g15jv2dp 2y ago
An endowment is entirely different from a market capitalization. How can you write "employees might include staff" and keep a straight face? Yes, they do, how is this even in question? MIT has 1089 faculty members but 17,180 employees total. That's a 15x difference.
- grobbyy 2y ago
  Yes. Do you realize how insane this is? A colleague of mine used to have a chart of staff per faculty member at MIT versus time. That figure has gone up around 20-fold on that chart. It's almost all bloat and overhead made possible by being over capitalized.

rmorey 2y ago

Looks like Princeton tops the Ivy League (and perhaps all universities?) at $27M per faculty member. I often like to call it "a hedge fund with hobbies"

csa 2y ago

> Believe it or not, elite universities are reaching similar heights. MIT is at roughly $20M endowment per faculty member. If you ran MIT, what do you think a good endowment amount per faculty member would be? I’m not sure $20m is far off from optimal. I might go down to $15m, with an annual draw down $750k so (5%) per year to cover burdened labor rate of average professor and certain percentage (half?) to go to “support” (i.e., everything else, including libraries, staff, maintenance, maybe grad student funding, etc.). Even that seems sort of on the tight side.

bryanlarsen 2y ago
$20M might be optimal if tuition was $0 and they didn't receive any research grants.
- csa 2y ago
  > if tuition was $0 https://sfs.mit.edu/undergraduate-students/the-cost-of-attendance/making-mit-affordable/ https://sfs.mit.edu/undergraduate-students/the-cost-of-atten... I couldn’t find the number quickly, but tuition is not a big funding source for the university. They are quite generous with tuition grants. This might not be true for the MBA program, but probably is for many/most other programs. > … and they didn't receive any research grants. Yeah. This is where I think one needs to look at exactly where expenses go. Grants don’t go as far as some folks think they do. Anyway, what’s your number with things being as they are? I’m still ok with $15-20m, and I am not particularly fond of university admins and the way they run things.
  - elijahwright 2y ago
    Indirect cost, how I loathe thee…
  - musicale 2y ago
    > tuition is not a big funding source for the university Princeton reported a paltry ~$154.5M in net tuition and fees for FY2023, which seems low ($18K/student.) They claimed $20K "net cost after aid" for students on financial aid. https://finance.princeton.edu/report-treasurer https://finance.princeton.edu/report-treasurer https://www.princeton.edu/news/2023/03/31/princeton-trustees-set-2023-24-budget-increasing-undergraduate-financial-aid-more https://www.princeton.edu/news/2023/03/31/princeton-trustees...
grobbyy 2y ago
I'd go down to about $2M, which is where MIT was at a quarter century ago, when it was it's prime. Being answerable to funding sources, tuition, etc. is a good thing. Having money to soon off from is not.

g15jv2dp 2y ago

An endowment is entirely different from a market capitalization. How can you write "employees might include staff" and keep a straight face? Yes, they do, how is this even in question? MIT has 1089 faculty members but 17,180 employees total. That's a 15x difference.

grobbyy 2y ago
Yes. Do you realize how insane this is? A colleague of mine used to have a chart of staff per faculty member at MIT versus time. That figure has gone up around 20-fold on that chart. It's almost all bloat and overhead made possible by being over capitalized.