When $119 Billion isn't Enough (1 Viewer)

[Cjw_55106]

Over a six-year period, Ivy League schools have received tens of billions in tax dollars, bringing in more money from taxpayers than from undergraduate student tuition. In fact, they received more federal cash than 16 state governments.

The 43-page report shows the massive amount of money flowing into not-for-profit Ivy League schools, including payments and entitlements, costing taxpayers more than $41 billion from fiscal year 2010 to fiscal year 2015.

The spending is controversial because these eight schools -- Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University and Yale University -- have enormous resources at their fingertips, including endowment funds (money raised from donors) in 2015 exceeding $119 billion

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/03/29/critics-to-ivy-leagues-taxpayer-gravy-train-needs-to-end.html

 

[mquinnjr]

Occupy Ivy League Schools?

 

[AAABatteries]

When you owe 120 billion?

 

[fatguyinalittlecoat]

I am not an Ivy League apologist and I think the hoarding of endowments by these institutions is unseemly.  But this study is ridiculous.  It's talking about scientific research grants.  The government isn't just giving the Universities something for nothing.   

 

[BobbyLayne]

Gotta click thriugh a few a few links to get the report, but...

- 41.59B total

- 25.73B payments fm Fed Gov (mostly to fund medical & other research)

- 9.56B Special Tax Treatment Endowment (e.g., the donor benefit would have been taxes flowing to US Treasury)

- 3.7B local property tax break

- 1.7B TE construction bonds

- 900M state gov payments

 

[TobiasFunke]

I am not an Ivy League apologist and I think the hoarding of endowments by these institutions is unseemly.  But this study is ridiculous.  It's talking about scientific research grants.  The government isn't just giving the Universities something for nothing.   

Yup. Some other obvious problems:

- About a third of the money is in "benefits," not payments, in the form of stuff like tax breaks. If favorable tax treatment of the wealthy constitutes a subsidy I have a looooooooong list of beneficiaries that Fox News and "Open the Books" might want to look into before they get to universities.

- There's no reason to single out Ivy League institutions for this study if you're trying to analyze wasteful government funding. Yes, they are already wealthy. So are a number of other schools. The University of Texas system has the third-largest endowment after Harvard and Yale and is obviously very much on the public teet. In fact only 3 of the top 8 endowments are Ivy schools. Notre Dame has a larger endowment than half the Ivy schools. IMO that makes it pretty obvious that they're trying to vilify east coast elitism, not track wasteful government spending at universities.

- The study aggregates spending over several years and presents a total without explaining why those years were chosen or more importantly why they didn't got with an annual figure instead.  This is a pretty common move when you're trying to convey a message rather than present objective facts- people default to assuming that numbers are compiled annually and many won't bother to divide by six or whatever in their heads.

-The guy who runs this thing is a right-wing politician and writer who has run for governor before and who also runs PACs that support Republican candidates. That fact is concealed on the website- which is somewhat odd considering he claims to favor transparency.  And as far as I can tell he's pretty wealthy himself, yet he's receiving government subsidies (by his definition) via favorable tax treatment for his non-profit organization AND is soliciting donations, so

 

[Ramsay Hunt Experience]

We can still bash Dartmouth, though, right?

 

[roadkill1292]

Someone, maybe Scoob's friend Gladwell, wrote a while ago that if people really want their donations to make a difference, send them to one of the HBCUs instead of your Ivy League alma mater, most of whom can't give away their endowments fast enough to deplete them.

 

[Dr Oadi]

I am not an Ivy League apologist and I think the hoarding of endowments by these institutions is unseemly.  But this study is ridiculous.  It's talking about scientific research grants.  The government isn't just giving the Universities something for nothing.   

Are we sure about this? The National Park Service forked over $5,000 to Mars Hill University so it could make a documentary film about a local musician.

 

[fatguyinalittlecoat]

Are we sure about this? The National Park Service forked over $5,000 to Mars Hill University so it could make a documentary film about a local musician.

Yes, a documentary would be considered "something."

Documentary trailer

 

[Ramsay Hunt Experience]

Not really apropos of anything but Shining Path's father used to manage Yale's endowment. 

 

[Phil Elliott]

I had offered to set up an annual donation program for my college but they were concerned it would redirect donations from existing programs.  I said fine, I will look for another institution. Didn't think it would be hard to give them money.  

 

[fatguyinalittlecoat]

Not really apropos of anything but Shining Path's father used to manage Yale's endowment. 

 

[Cjw_55106]

So they are/were getting 4 Billion dollars (on average) a year for research? 4 Billion...every year. 

 

[fatguyinalittlecoat]

So they are/were getting 4 Billion dollars (on average) a year for research? 4 Billion...every year. 

Should be more in my opinion.  The world would be a better place with more research and less bombing stuff.

 

[Zow]

So they are/were getting 4 Billion dollars (on average) a year for research? 4 Billion...every year. 

The medical industry is huge and incredibly important. Why does this seem like a lot to you?

 

[RUSF18]

Should be more in my opinion.  The world would be a better place with more research and less bombing stuff.

And it's also going to some pretty smart people. 

 

[RUSF18]

I don't disagree though that people seem to generally give a lot of money to people/places that don't really need it. If the government took away the tax break for donating to school's athletic programs, especially when it comes to "seat gifts" etc, the schools would end up doing just fine and maybe people would donate elsewhere.