Lots of numbers out there, and once you get into the weeds, you need to look at full time, part time, graduate.... My point is not the exact number, the point is you can't even come close to fully funding tuition for substantially more students without cutting somewhere, and even then it has to be limited.
Bubba wrote: ↑Jul 25th, '23, 14:15
I don't mind, nor do I care about, kids who can afford it paying full boat. The issue is whether schools give preference to those who can (in order to "keep the lights on" per MM) over those who are equally qualified but need assistance.
Let's do some math.
If we take an 8% return on Harvard's 41B endowment, and spend half on tuition for students (which doesn't leave much for growing the fund over inflation) that leaves 1.6B for scholarship and research et al. If we spend ALL on scholarship, at 57,261 in tuition, we can fully underwrite 28,640 students. If we spend half on scholarships, and half on research, we can fund 14,320 students. There are 31,345 students at Harvard.
It doesn't appear you can fund all of the students, even on 41B.
Here's how Harvard spends it:
Harvard.jpg
So Harvard is spending 20% of endowment return budget on tuition. (Only 7% on research.) That fully funds about 5,700 students. (Obviously scholarships are a sliding scale, this is just for illustration) So the remaining wealthy 25,000 students are all smarter than the rest of us? Huh. Maybe not.
Are the wealthy applicants really that much smarter? If you truly take the students with the best aptitudes, how many full boat wealthy students would that provide the school? I don't know, but I do know wealth does not equal intelligence. I suspect many get in due to their ability to pay full boat, and the endowment would not be as robust as it is today if they had say doubled their scholarship spending in the last 50 years to more evenly accept those with the most promise. And doubling would still fund only 11,400 out of a 31,000 student body. We still need 21,000 Richie Rich's.
Are professors overpaid? Are there too many administrators? Do they spend too much on sports? Could be. Don't know. What I do know is that many of you see the 'billion' and lose a sense of perspective. Same thing with the Exxon discussion.
I find it just a little pretentious if you think that you (royal Kzone you) know how to better spend Harvard's endowment when they are responsible for managing it to where it is today, and even that can't fund all the students. And that's for the wealthiest school, the numbers are worse for every other school.
Nice way to avoid the point. The issue is whether schools give preference to those who can (in order to "keep the lights on" per MM) over those who are equally qualified but need assistance.
If they no longer give preference to legacies and Richie Rich and friends, there will be the same number of incoming students, some if not most being of equal or greater qualification than the legacies, however, more of them may need assistance. Harvard and others I cited can clearly afford to provide additional support to those students through their endowments. (FYI, additional support does not necessarily require free tuition, etc.) Many of those who graduate will then, down the road, become very successful and will provide additional contributions to the endowment funds through contributions later in life.
This is clearly not an issue of keeping the lights on.
"Abandon hope all ye who enter here"
Killington Zone
You can checkout any time you like,
but you can never leave
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function" =
F. Scott Fitzgerald
"There's nothing more frightening than ignorance in action" - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Bubba wrote: ↑Jul 25th, '23, 19:24
Nice way to avoid the point. The issue is whether schools give preference to those who can (in order to "keep the lights on" per MM) over those who are equally qualified but need assistance.
If they no longer give preference to legacies and Richie Rich and friends, there will be the same number of incoming students, some if not most being of equal or greater qualification than the legacies, however, more of them may need assistance. Harvard and others I cited can clearly afford to provide additional support to those students through their endowments. (FYI, additional support does not necessarily require free tuition, etc.) Many of those who graduate will then, down the road, become very successful and will provide additional contributions to the endowment funds through contributions later in life.
This is clearly not an issue of keeping the lights on.
I don't see where I avoided the point.
I think it's obvious schools do give preference to those that can pay, or can pay most of their tuition, as they are the majority of students. There simply isn't enough investment income off the endowment to fund a significantly higher number of scholarship dollars without cutting something. Where are you taking the money from in Harvard's budget to fund more financial aid?
What do you mean by "additional support that isn't tuition"?
And for additional endowment funds from successful graduates, isn't that already the case? Are you suggesting students who get assistance give more generously that those who don't?
'Keeping the lights on' means funding the university in such a manner through tuition (and other income) such that the endowment sustains in perpetuity the ability to enable the above pie chart, as well as annual operations.
Bubba wrote: ↑Jul 25th, '23, 19:24
Nice way to avoid the point. The issue is whether schools give preference to those who can (in order to "keep the lights on" per MM) over those who are equally qualified but need assistance.
If they no longer give preference to legacies and Richie Rich and friends, there will be the same number of incoming students, some if not most being of equal or greater qualification than the legacies, however, more of them may need assistance. Harvard and others I cited can clearly afford to provide additional support to those students through their endowments. (FYI, additional support does not necessarily require free tuition, etc.) Many of those who graduate will then, down the road, become very successful and will provide additional contributions to the endowment funds through contributions later in life.
This is clearly not an issue of keeping the lights on.
I don't see where I avoided the point.
I think it's obvious schools do give preference to those that can pay, or can pay most of their tuition, as they are the majority of students. There simply isn't enough investment income off the endowment to fund a significantly higher number of scholarship dollars without cutting something. Where are you taking the money from in Harvard's budget to fund more financial aid?
What do you mean by "additional support that isn't tuition"?
And for additional endowment funds from successful graduates, isn't that already the case? Are you suggesting students who get assistance give more generously that those who don't?
'Keeping the lights on' means funding the university in such a manner through tuition (and other income) such that the endowment sustains in perpetuity the ability to enable the above pie chart, as well as annual operations.
I"m not sure if they give students who can pay preference - although there are likely pools within adimission - students who need aid, students who don't etc.
I'd guess if you really dug into it, you would find that for every kid paying full boat there is a kid on a full aid package, for every student who pays 75% and gets 25% aid, there is one who pays 25% and gets 75% etc etc
They know their financials and have it figured out.
Mister Moose wrote: ↑Jul 25th, '23, 15:29
Let's do some math.
If we take an 8% return on Harvard's 41B endowment, and spend half on tuition for students (which doesn't leave much for growing the fund over inflation) that leaves 1.6B for scholarship and research et al. If we spend ALL on scholarship, at 57,261 in tuition, we can fully underwrite 28,640 students. If we spend half on scholarships, and half on research, we can fund 14,320 students. There are 31,345 students at Harvard.
It doesn't appear you can fund all of the students, even on 41B.
Given those numbers, here’s another way to look at it: by allocation $1.6B on tuition, Harvard could provide $51,000 of tuition assistance to every student. That makes tuition essentially about $6,200. The national average for in-state tuition is around $9,300. Without considering living costs, student loans and work-study (if needed) would make Harvard available to virtually anyone qualified for acceptance regardless of their financial resources.
I don't think it's really fair to expect Harvard to spend the entire investment proceeds of its endowment on student tuition. I do think it's fair to question how they are spending the proceeds generally, as a potential consumer and/or charitable donor. If they're not allocating that money wisely, that's a factor to consider in choosing either to pay for their services or to donate money to them. In my view, it's similar in nature to making sure you investigate a company's financials before investing in them. Perhaps there should be more mandated disclosure and/or audit requirements on these elite universities.
On a somewhat related note, as a small-c conservative, I'm not sure government should be involved in mandating what Harvard can and cannot do with its endowment. However, to the extent Harvard receives public funds, we should be very interested in how that money is spent, and whether we are getting a return on that investment.
To the Republicans in the room, what would you say to Kate Cox this morning?
How do you rationalize a state that was trying to force her through a pregnancy that would almost certainly result in miscarriage, would for certain result in death in infancy if the fetus survived, a pregnancy that might have killed Kate or rendered her infertile?
Killington Zone
You can checkout any time you like,
but you can never leave
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function" =
F. Scott Fitzgerald
"There's nothing more frightening than ignorance in action" - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Yeah I am pretty skeptical about this reporting. It looks like partisan character assassination to me.
While I am troubled by the many examples of undue influence that comes from justices accepting gifts, I'd be willing to bet money Thomas isn't the only judge on the receiving and of these sorts of things. He's just the one who got publicly exposed.
