Endowed funds are restricted- the donors can place constraints on how they are spent. They are not fungible and cannot reliably used to pay for a wide range of

Endowed funds are restricted- the donors can place constraints on how they are spent. They are not fungible and cannot reliably used to pay for a wide range of things that are currently paid for by federal funding. Personally I would love to see the richest people in the nation contribute a lot more to universities in the form of unrestricted funds, to give these universities some options when it comes to being dependent on federal funding. But I guess you don't get rich by giving unrestricted funds to universities.