If you haven’t read it yet, this is essential for understanding the economic situation universities find themselves in as federal funding gets cut off. - ThreadSky

jenebbeler.bsky.social • 68 days ago

If you haven’t read it yet, this is essential for understanding the economic situation universities find themselves in as federal funding gets cut off.

Reposted from Adam Gurri

Educate yourself by reading @epopppp.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/donmoyni...

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kdiggity8.bsky.social•68 days ago

Also, most universities build in for market fluctuations in their investments - mine used a 5 year trailing avg of the principal. So back during the 2008-9 crash, we didn't feel the loss right away, but felt the impact for years after. So pulling gov't funding AND destroying...

kdiggity8.bsky.social•68 days ago

the stock market is going to be a double-whammy to higher education. Both the sponsored (grants) and non-sponsored sides. All that combined with ever-dwindling funding at the state level, and tuition goes up, staff get laid off, and there's a genuine crisis.

jenebbeler.bsky.social•68 days ago

Absolutely. I am bracing for impact because there’s no way this isn’t bad for everyone. And publics like mine are limited in what we can do about tuition.

kdiggity8.bsky.social•68 days ago

Exactly. I worked at a public land-grant university that I also attended and it was so frustrating to see state-funding go from 2/3 of our O&M income to 1/3 over the years, with tuition having to close that gap.

kdiggity8.bsky.social•68 days ago

And one more thing about endowments - something like 95% of donated funds are set so you cannot touch the principal - you can only spend the interest earned. So even if an institution has $1bn in endowments, only a fraction of that is actually spendable.

mikevachow.bsky.social•68 days ago

Chronicle of Higher Ed ran a piece about 10 yrs ago on the conundrum of anachronistic, "ghost" endowments at universities, big sums for endeavors, areas of study, technologies that no longer exist except in museums, and yet, the corpus cannot be touched bc the donor family lineage has ended.

jenebbeler.bsky.social•68 days ago

Yup. This is the part the general public needs to understand. Endowments look impressive but most of that $$ can’t be touched and also has specific conditions on how it can be spent. State funds are similar.

jenebbeler.bsky.social•68 days ago

Absolutely and same pattern with us. And then that hangover effect got used to never bounce back to pre-recession levels of funding.

canuck1812eh.bsky.social•68 days ago

Can you believe the wealthiest guy in the world has the President selling his cars from the White House? Can you believe the wealthiest guy in the world is using his DOGE to line his own pockets? The US is his endowment!

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