FP: I love the idea, that "many universities endowments throw off enough interest to cover tuition for all students" but that seems like a bold claim. Do you have convincing evidence to support your claim ? It may be that some prestigious universities have sufficient endowments to "cover tuition for all students" but I suspect many do not.
Short of "covering tuition" (and further supporting the false idea that things in life are free"), why not require universities to use a significant percentage of their endowment funds for low cost student loans. That way, universities could encourage / court the students they deem highly desirable and their students would be beholding to their alma mater rather that the Fed govt. Or just give those "gifted" & 'underprivileged" students they seek outright grants -- much like they do for coveted athletes.
Either approach would get tax payers off the hook and perhaps imped the extravagant country club / resort building projects.
Yes, it is Wikipedia, no, I don’t know if it is entirely accurate, but it shows 82 private and 53 public universities with over $1 billion in endowments, most of them well known and/or popular. At 2.5% annually, that’s $25 million a year, not enough to cover all students, but enough to cover some tuition.
Another part of the falsity of the claim is what are called restricted endowments a good portion of endowment resources have their earnings restricted to a particular purpose. To change those restrictions the university needs to do a CY PRES action with the attorney general of the state.
“Many university endowments throw off enough interest to cover tuition for all students and they should be forced to use that interest to do so.”
No, they shouldn’t be *forced*.
But neither should taxpayers be forced to subsidize the loans by guaranteeing them, nor especially by bearing the cost of Dems’ student loan forgiveness gambits, which have lower income folks subsidizing higher income ones - and the universities themselves!
That is simply untrue. Only a small handful have enough endowment to do that. A good formula is 20X - to keep something funded for a year you need 20 times that amount being used.
I agree most couldn’t pay for all tuition for all students (given how high their costs now are).
But the universities SHOULD have some skin in the game on these loans. If taxpayers are gonna take a hit on loans not paid back, each university should as well.
Instead we have the reverse - Biden simply “forgave” billions and billions in student loans - meaning he gave money from lower income taxpayers to upper middle class college graduates.
Many university endowments throw off enough interest to cover tuition for all students and they should be forced to use that interest to do so.
FP: I love the idea, that "many universities endowments throw off enough interest to cover tuition for all students" but that seems like a bold claim. Do you have convincing evidence to support your claim ? It may be that some prestigious universities have sufficient endowments to "cover tuition for all students" but I suspect many do not.
Short of "covering tuition" (and further supporting the false idea that things in life are free"), why not require universities to use a significant percentage of their endowment funds for low cost student loans. That way, universities could encourage / court the students they deem highly desirable and their students would be beholding to their alma mater rather that the Fed govt. Or just give those "gifted" & 'underprivileged" students they seek outright grants -- much like they do for coveted athletes.
Either approach would get tax payers off the hook and perhaps imped the extravagant country club / resort building projects.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universities_in_the_United_States_by_endowment
Yes, it is Wikipedia, no, I don’t know if it is entirely accurate, but it shows 82 private and 53 public universities with over $1 billion in endowments, most of them well known and/or popular. At 2.5% annually, that’s $25 million a year, not enough to cover all students, but enough to cover some tuition.
Good article. Thanks
Another part of the falsity of the claim is what are called restricted endowments a good portion of endowment resources have their earnings restricted to a particular purpose. To change those restrictions the university needs to do a CY PRES action with the attorney general of the state.
“Many university endowments throw off enough interest to cover tuition for all students and they should be forced to use that interest to do so.”
No, they shouldn’t be *forced*.
But neither should taxpayers be forced to subsidize the loans by guaranteeing them, nor especially by bearing the cost of Dems’ student loan forgiveness gambits, which have lower income folks subsidizing higher income ones - and the universities themselves!
That is simply untrue. Only a small handful have enough endowment to do that. A good formula is 20X - to keep something funded for a year you need 20 times that amount being used.
I agree most couldn’t pay for all tuition for all students (given how high their costs now are).
But the universities SHOULD have some skin in the game on these loans. If taxpayers are gonna take a hit on loans not paid back, each university should as well.
Instead we have the reverse - Biden simply “forgave” billions and billions in student loans - meaning he gave money from lower income taxpayers to upper middle class college graduates.