Now that Trump & Co. have made it clear they’re coming after Harvard too, it’s worth sharing this squib I posted on Facebook last week (with a few edits and context):
So many pseudo-sophisticates are saying “Columbia has $14B, they should just [fill in the blank].” People, please.
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Very little of that asset base is liquid
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Huge amounts of it come with strict contractual limits on how it can be used — and asking donors to revise those agreements carries its own risks
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Lots of it is promised rather than in hand
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Spending down their endowment won’t actually solve the problem, which is that the president of the US wants to make an example of the school, and has many more tools for doing so.
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If they did it, a lot of other schools would go ballistic, particularly those that aren’t wealthy — and the leftish peanut gallery would join right in, railing about inequity.
See also:
- 2020-10-16-dancing-your-way-to-solvency — New School in 2020
- 2025-02-25-how-nih-cuts-will-defund-edus — higher ed in general 2025
- 2025-02-26-Niemöller-for-today — Harvard 2025
- 2025-03-09-trump-higher-ed-and-judaism — higher ed in general 2025
- 2025-03-13-this-is-not-an-an-attack-on-science — Columbia 2025
And check out this July 2020 viz from Scott Galloway, from his No Mercy / No Malice blog:
