Comments on: How rich is Yale?

By: decasia: critique of academic culture » The politics of early university buildings

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 09:46:06 +0000

[…] in racial exclusion, in slum clearance, in gentrification. I’ve posted before about Gordon Lafer’s history of Yale urban development and about Kate Eichhorn’s paper on the “abject zone” of copyshops around the […]

By: zach

zach — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 14:38:08 +0000

The current aid package is the result of two things: jockeying with Harvard for the top of the rankings, and wave of student protest and organizing over the last decade culminating in a February 2005 student occupation of the university’s financial aid office. While its aid package has improved dramatically since then, it remains a posterchild for so many other neoliberal ills – privatizing and profiting from federally funded research, union busting graduate students and hospital workers, neocolonial urban expansion, deeply problematic investment practices, etc.

As for the current endowment, it had reached 23 billion before the financial crisis, but has now fallen to somewhere around 16 billion dollars, prompting many financial commentators to denounce “the Yale method” and its guru, CIO David Swenson.

By: Max

Max — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 13:05:35 +0000

I’m pretty surprised by this information, especially the part where Yale is compared to Fortune 500 companies. On the one hand, it seems ludicrous, but at the same time, it’s worth noting (as you do) that there may be legitimate purposes for universities to accumulate this kind of wealth, such as protecting against future economic turmoil.

It’s also worth mentioning that Yale has had over 300 years to accumulate $6+ billion, and that universities don’t reinvest and expand at the same rate as large corporations. Nike has only been in “the game” for what, 40 or 45 years?

Wait, Wikipedia is telling me that Yale’s endowment is now at a staggering $22.6 billion.

Wikipedia is also telling me that more than 40% of Yale students receive need-based financial assistance from the university, and that the average scholarship (most of which do not have to be paid back) is worth $26,900.

So maybe Yale isn’t the poster child for greedy universities that can afford to offer aid, but decide not to. Nevertheless, such poster children do exist, and it really is kind of staggering how much money they pull in.