Monday, October 15, 2007

Endowment funds

It's nice to see that the University of Cincinnati's endowment fund earned 15.9% on it's investments last year. The endowment is now worth 1.1 billion dollars.

With those earnings they'll be able to use that money for..... Actually what will they use all that money for?

If a billion dollar endowment makes 6% on it's investment, the fund would earn $60,000,000 per year and never touch principle. They could use that money for student grants or tuition payments for well over 3000 students.

If nothing else, the endowments could be used to at least offset the massive inflationary pressure on tuition hikes.

But instead, endowment funds become larger for the sole purpose of.... being larger. Harvard has an endowment fund of $20 billion dollars. Why? What is the mission for the use of all these billions? Solicit and accumulate more billions?

What I've never understood is why people keep giving to these endowment funds when they wouldn't think of giving money to their public school system, who could probably use the money more than a damn endowment fund.

So the next time you get those license plates renewed and you want to give that $50.00 to your alma mater; just keep it. You'll get more out of it than the school will.

1 comment:

Brian said...

This is one more reason why all universities, colleges, and post secondary trade schools should not receive government tax payer support. They should have to operate as business without being a burden on the taxpayers.