I first came across the issue of universities sitting on hidden cash reserves at Rolling Stone years ago, when Collinge told me about an extraordinary slip-up in the state of Wisconsin. University of Wisconsin president Kevin Reilly in 2013 blurted in a state hearing that his school was sitting on $648 million in reserves, also above endowment. This number had jumped 62% in the previous two years, at the end of a period in which tuition had jumped 5.5% a year from 2007 on. This was revealed in the context of a proposal for the state of Wisconsin to add $181 million in taxpayer aid to UW’s allegedly ailing budget. “The good news is, no dollars have been reported missing,” was the sheepish quip of Gerald Whitburn, chairman of the UW Regents’ Budget, Finance, and Audit Committee.
Collinge in 1999 graduated from USC with a degree in aerospace engineering, lost a job, and saw his $38,000 in loans balloon to $100,000. Drunk on a couch, he swore he’d find a way to get Sallie Mae on 60 Minutes if it was the last thing he did. “Lo and behold, I ended up being interviewed by Lesley Stahl within about a year,” he said. His site, StudentLoanJustice.org, became what he called a “complaint box for the industry,” focusing among other things on the scammish financial setup of higher education. “The colleges are more awash in cash today than at any point in U.S. history, even adjusting for inflation,” he says. “But here we have them just falling over themselves trying to pretend they’re poor.” He notes most states annually send gigantic amounts of interest to the Department of Education, with Maine for instance earning $388 million from lobsters while sending out $410 million to the DOE, and Floridians sending the feds more in interest than they earn from visitors to Disney:
Collinge in 1999 graduated from USC with a degree in aerospace engineering, lost a job, and saw his $38,000 in loans balloon to $100,000. Drunk on a couch, he swore he’d find a way to get Sallie Mae on 60 Minutes if it was the last thing he did. “Lo and behold, I ended up being interviewed by Lesley Stahlwithin about a year,” he said. His site, StudentLoanJustice.org, became what he called a “complaint box for the industry,” focusing among other things on the scammish financial setup of higher education. “The colleges are more awash in cash today than at any point in U.S. history, even adjusting for inflation,” he says. “But here we have them just falling over themselves trying to pretend they’re poor.” He notes most states annually send gigantic amounts of interest to the Department of Education, with Maine for instance earning $388 million from lobsters while sending out $410 million to the DOE, and Floridians sending the feds more in interest than they earn from visitors to Disney:
