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I really find it surprising how often people bring up endowments as if they are a resource that can be spent. The purpose of an endowment is to produce revenue
by pastel8739 1y ago
I really find it surprising how often people bring up endowments as if they are a resource that can be spent. The purpose of an endowment is to produce revenue via investment income; that investment income is already reflected in the operating revenue under "Investment return to operations". MIT cannot and should not spend their endowment beyond this investment income; doing so would jeopardize the long-term viability of MIT.
- dekhn 1y agoThis is open to debate. Some endowments are intended to be spent directly, and not everybody agrees that spending some fraction of the endowment curses the university to oblivion. Some financial policies can be suspended (they are not absolute, fixed rules). Many at Harvard felt the endowment was far larger than necessary for long-term viability, and wanted to spend money on capital improvements.
- mlrtime 1y agoI find it surprising that every time endowments come up, there are replies stating it can only be used in very specific tasks. As if they are written in stone and can never change, ever. Or the new money that comes in can't be used for something else.