Which is so incredibly dumb, and one of the many reasons why our university system is broken.
Vandy laying off staff left and right.
To be fair, this statement [referring to the correlation between endowment and university ranking] could also be made as to why an institution like Stanford has so many niche, financially insolvent varsity sports in the first place.
Refusing to dip into the endowment to protect ranking may be dumb in some cases. But not dumb to prioritize the university endowment over the synchronized swimming team.
What’s the point of the endowment? What does it actually do besides provide ammunition for a douchebag dick measuring contest?
Protecting academic programs?
Stanford is shutting down varsity sports while some other universities are shutting down departments and even whole colleges.
What’s the point of the endowment? What does it actually do besides provide ammunition for a douchebag dick measuring contest?
We should probably pin this because there are some serious misconceptions on these boards about the purpose and utility of a university endowment. It's not just some coveted hoard of treasure guarded by administrative dragons beneath their ivory tower or a rainy-day fund that can be spent when funds get low. An endowment is a useful economic measure of academic dick-size exactly because it literally funds the operation of the university.
Endowment funds generate income to finance particular operating costs for units within the institution itself, providing revenue for specific assets like professorships and scholarships. The typical university only spends something like 5% of their endowment each year. And they usually can't spend the remaining funds on something like, say, firing an unpopular basketball coach, because the principal is usually restricted and the income is otherwise committed to recurring expenses.
You don't see that as a massive issue? Universities have to sit on massive piles of money, so that money can make money, which will be used to pay for operating costs, while charging kids $50K+ to attend their school? How about just running a balanced budget with a little put away for a rainy day. The Stanfords of the world do not need $28T sitting in a bank account. Our universities are run like fucking hedge funds, not schools. And it is disgusting.
^Also sitting on a billions of dollars while paying a majority of your staff below a living wage is morally reprehensible. No university or college that does that can claim to be anything but a cold-hearted corporation. Just like everything else in this country our modern universities' main purpose is to bloat the salaries of its elite employees and to hoard wealth.
well, Stanford charges rich* kids and their parents $50k while offering discounts (funded through the endowment) to people that aren't rich*
*Stanford and I disagree on the precise categorization of who is rich
Who is it that is being paid below a living wage by the university?
A lot of those discounts are not getting funded by endowment. They're getting funded by those who can afford to pay full fare.