Elitist colleges and universities are, to put it mildly, loaded. The cash they have squirreled away in endowments alone could give each and every student a free ride to the next generation.
In addition to the endowment cash that's a point of pride for each university (although we can only look, no touching), there's also a revenue stream from patented products that taxpayer-funded research pays for.
Billions of dollars in Pell Grants, student aid, research grants, and other taxpayer funds flow into the coffers of colleges that are pleading with the feds not to destroy them by taking away federal funding.
Balderdash. I'd use a stronger epitaph, but this is a family publication.
John Thomas, the managing director of the strategic advocacy firm Nestpoint Associates out of Dallas, believes that the $2.2 billion in federal funds that Harvard is fighting for could be put to better use elsewhere.
“Public universities and community colleges are the backbone of American education, training our workforce and uplifting communities without the elitist baggage of the Ivies,” Thomas told the New York Sun. “They deserve funding over Ivy League hedge funds that push woke agendas and hoard billions, because they deliver real value to real Americans. We are better off funding the schools that build America, not the ones that lecture it.”
At the same time that schools are stuffing cash inside their mattresses, 150 rural hospitals have shut down since 2005, and rural schools are laying off teachers and cutting lunch money.
There's a better funding template to follow, says Hillsdale College's President Larry Arnn.
America would be a “better place if the sources of support for education were decentralized,” Mr. Arnn says. Schools like Harvard “get a lot of money from the taxpayer, and they don’t like what Trump is doing to them. Harvard is claiming to have a constitutional right both to the money and to do whatever they want.” But there are “rules that go along with taking that federal money.”
Hillsdale takes no money from Washington whatsoever. Harvard is “funded in a system that funds every college in America, except a few—and that’s not good, right," queries Mr. Arnn.
Right you are, sir.
To illuminate the wealth of these universities, Harvard’s endowment, at $53 billion, is larger than the Gross Domestic Product of 124 nations.
Financial reports for 2024 alone disclose that Columbia University received $1.3 billion in federal funding, while the University of Pennsylvania secured $1.8 billion and Yale University received $898.7 million.
Close behind, Cornell University garnered $825.5 million, with Harvard University receiving $686.5 million. Princeton University reported $455 million, Brown University disclosed more than $254 million, and Dartmouth received $141.9 million, according to USA Spending.
The grants that Harvard and other schools will forgo if they don't toe the line Trump has drawn in the sand are not just used for research and other university needs. Those grants allow the schools to charge up to 64 cents on the dollar for "overhead."
Initially capped at 8 percent, the rate was gradually increased and eventually uncapped in the mid-1960s, allowing universities to set their own rates using broad cost formulas and raising concerns about transparency and whether research dollars are diverted away from their intended purpose on the taxpayer’s dime.
After the cap was removed, overhead rates soared — the likes of Stanford University reached 74 percent by 1990 — leading to scandals over funds being spent on perks like yachts and office makeovers. While public pressure forced rates down temporarily, they’ve since climbed back above 60 percent at a number of top schools.
This led to universities reaping more and more money from tuition while benefiting from generous Washington aid packages. According to The New York Sun tallies, the average sticker price to attend any of the eight Ivy Leagues is approximately $90,400.75 a year.
Personally, I hope that Harvard starts a war with Washington over the funding issue. At least it would expose the ugly truth about Harvard University that the Regents have tried to hide for the last several decades.
As a preppie who didn’t whiff admission I freely admit to lingering envy, but it’s a fact that Harvard is misunderstood. It’s home to some of our smartest, but far more of our dumbest. For every student who makes it on genius, a hundred arrive by other channels. These idiots run the country. What binds them is an aura of oblivious up-your-own-a**ness unique to Harvard (and maybe Yale). Six Harvard grads jargonizing over beers about the flaws of Earth’s more vulgar environs will remind you of shipwrecked space aliens guffawing at this primitive planet, while overconfidently awaiting an intergalactic tow.
According to Matt Taibbi, they tried to snow Trump about the DEI changes, and the administration was having none of it. When the ruse was discovered, the administration fired back with a five-page letter outlining new demands that Harvard couldn't possibly meet.
Harvard was playing the usual game of talking about reform while doing little to change. That's not acceptable anymore, and other elite universities had better realize it, and soon.
