ChatGPT estimates that Columbia's endowment in 1970 was $337 M. So $1 M in missing funds should have been highly material in an accounting sense.
They were also in the midst of a record (for all Universities at the time) $100 M fund drive, which got extended and then derailed by the SDS protests in 1968 and 1970. One protest in 1970, at the brand new School of International Affairs, resulted in $25,000 in damage, mainly to the exterior windows.
I have never contributed to Columbia since graduating; they don't value money.
I hate to quibble, but an $8 million accounting error doesn’t seem quite the same as foregoing $400 million of cash.
ChatGPT estimates that Columbia's endowment in 1970 was $337 M. So $1 M in missing funds should have been highly material in an accounting sense.
They were also in the midst of a record (for all Universities at the time) $100 M fund drive, which got extended and then derailed by the SDS protests in 1968 and 1970. One protest in 1970, at the brand new School of International Affairs, resulted in $25,000 in damage, mainly to the exterior windows.
I have never contributed to Columbia since graduating; they don't value money.