This morning I was reading the World Almanac, something I do to prepare for my weekly trivia match. I happened upon a section that read, “20 largest endowments – U.S. Colleges.” Harvard, with an endowment of $25 billion, was ranked number 1, a good $10 billion ahead of second-place Yale, and the numbers quickly dropped down to the $3-4 billion range for most of the rest of the top 20.
An endowment is sort of a college/university’s nest egg. If all goes well, they fund their operations out of interest earned off the endowment. Think what kind of interest Harvard must be earning off a $25 billion endowment. No wonder they’re able to fund programs like offering free tuition to students whose families earn less than $60,000 a year.
I checked the website of my alma mater, Rhodes College, whom I challenged yesterday to create a program equivalent to Harvard’s. Rhodes has an endowment of $252 million. Hardly chump change, but it’s about 1/100th of Harvard’s. So maybe they legitimately couldn’t implement a similar program.
I still believe in the spirit of the challenge I made though. This society is becoming more and more polarized into haves and have-nots, and those lucky enough to be “haves” need to assume more responsibility to ensure that opportunity is available to all, not just other “haves.”
All right. End of rant. Got a lot to get done today, so my lunchtime posts are going to be short.