You probably thought this was going to be a post about the controversy over the university presidents who recently gave disastrous Congressional testimony about antisemitism on campus, and the big donors who have been trying to get them fired. Well, sorry to disappoint you, but it’s not really about that — or at least, only tangentially. I will admit that the fracas over antisemitism is what made me think of this topic, but the problem of elite university donations is something that has been rattling around in my head for a while.
Decades, actually. I went to an elite college (Stanford), and we were always being reminded of how important donations were to the institution. Gifts from alumni, foundations, and various other individuals were what fed the university endowment, and returns on that endowment were a huge source of cash. In 2019, Harvard’s CFO claimed that 45% of that school’s annual revenue could be attributed to current or past donations. A look at the national statistics shows that Harvard is not that much an outlier; among nonprofit 4-year universities, about a third of revenue comes from gifts or endowment returns.
KEY FINDINGS:
1. Ivy League payments and entitlements cost taxpayers $41.59 billion over a six-year period (FY2010-FY2015). This is equivalent to $120,000 in government monies, subsidies, & special tax treatment per undergraduate student, or $6.93 billion per year.