The Patriot Post® · Higher Ed, Endowments, and Price Gouging

Pro-Hamas student supporters at Columbia University are attempting to organize a “tuition strike” against their university for the spring semester. Not only are these students most likely overplaying their hand in terms of the tolerance Columbia has shown regarding their calls for violence against the campus’s Jewish pupils, but they are directly attacking the Board of Trustees and by extension the political and financial framework of the university.

Columbia’s Board of Trustees oversees the overall governance of the school. To paraphrase The Washington Stand’s Joshua Arnold, the board chooses the university president and all of its faculty; it oversees all the finances of the school and its endowments; and it has a vested interest in protecting the physical school property.

It’s not a good plan to attack the hand that’s feeding you, particularly in a place where it’ll hurt — namely, the pocketbook.

This tuition strike, however, is an interesting segue into a larger discussion involving many former and present students: student loans and endowments.

Going to college is a privilege, not a right. It is something that is earned, and students are supposed to go there to learn. Colleges and universities have taken that status and perverted it into something unrecognizable, all for the sake of money and power. They are hotbeds for leftist ideological indoctrination, they have a bloated admin and staff that are heading departments under the DEI umbrella, and they continue to raise their prices.

Student loans are often astronomical for young people, and there are many reasons for this. For starters, the government’s financial meddling has helped facilitate a higher university price tag. The universities are also adding degrees for jobs that 10 years ago didn’t necessarily require them. This expansion is forcing students into debt.

The federal government under President Joe Biden has been on a crusade to redistribute the balance of student loans to those who didn’t agree to those loans. The administration has even figured out ways to circumvent the Supreme Court ruling that was intended to protect taxpayers from feckless government spending. According to The Wall Street Journal, a total of $132 billion in student loan forgiveness has been issued.

The price of a college degree should be decreased, but it is the government’s continued interference that is partially driving up the cost. Is it right that a plumber who decided to forgo a four-year degree in favor of a trade is forced to carry the burden of some LGBTQ dance major’s (yes, that’s a thing) student debts through taxes? No.

This also leads to another interesting thought. Why haven’t universities been asked to contribute more toward decreasing the cost of attendance through use of their endowments? Endowments are tax-free donations that accumulate over time. They are often spent on things like extravagant student amenities, bonuses for faculty, and supporting unnecessary and harmful DEI departments that have been a main facilitator of racism and hate in higher education.

If they so chose, universities could use a large portion of those endowments to help with student debt. According to PJ Media, “As of 2023, the cumulative total of university endowments is over $810 billion.” That is roughly half of all student loan debt, and vastly more than even the higher estimates of Biden’s ambitious “forgiveness” plans.

Take, for example, Columbia University, since it is facing a howling mob of unserious rabble-rousing students. The university this year has $13.64 billion in endowments; of that, $632.5 million was spent, 24% of which went to student support.

What exactly does “student support” entail? How much of that is financial aid provided by the school? That is not explained.

Harvard University has the largest endowment in the country with nearly $51 billion in assets as of October. Here is how the university itself describes the distribution: “The endowment distributed $2.2 billion in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2023 contributing over a third of Harvard’s total operating revenue in that year. The overwhelming majority of the funds that make up Harvard’s endowment are donor directed to specific programs, departments, or purposes (dedicated scholarships, named professorships, etc.), and must be spent in accordance with terms set forth by the donor. Payout from these funds can only be spent in support of the fund’s designated purpose. Unrestricted funds, which account for approximately 20 percent of Harvard’s endowment, are more flexible in nature and are critical in supporting structural operating expenses and transformative, strategic initiatives.”

In other words, unless the donor specifically requests that the funds be used toward student loan relief, the school will likely direct it elsewhere and probably toward more unnecessary bloat.

It is the universities, not the American people, that are price-gouging. It stands to reason that the universities need to help contain the skyrocketing cost of tuition and rising student loan balances.