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NoREEEEEEtilBrooklyn t1_j6o63b0 wrote

Reply to comment by sneeze-slayer in Temple University Graduate Students Go on Strike after Year of Unsuccessful Negotiations by BigxMac

I hate when people bring up endowments when talking about higher ed like they are some magical pool of money that can be dipped into at any point in time for any reason. Endowment numbers that the public sees are an aggregate number of the value of all of the endowed (IE: invested funds created to sustain a specific thing) funds.

An endowed fund isn’t easily fungible. In order for money to be removed from an endowed fund, the donor who began the endowed fund would have to amend their agreement with the university. Most donors are extremely hesitant to do so because they specifically want their money to go towards a program they have a passion for and have chosen to endow a fund to help sustain that program in perpetuity. Even then, the maximum withdrawal rate that is typically allowed is 4-10% per year.

Endowments have no place in this discussion unless there are specific endowed funds that fund graduate stipends/salary, which I am sure exist. It’s a red herring. The money that should be discussed is the general budget. I am extremely curious as to where the $400m plus surplus from 2021-22 went.

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sneeze-slayer t1_j6o87h5 wrote

Right, but Princeton endowment was 37 billion in 2021, so six years ago at 4% they were generating 1.5 billion in interest every year. They simply have an order of magnatude more money to fund what they please.

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NoREEEEEEtilBrooklyn t1_j6o9hvw wrote

And the interest earned from those accounts goes straight back into those accounts. That’s the whole point of endowing them. They are typically programs that wouldn’t exist without the endowed fund, or scholarship/financial aid dollars (in Princeton’s case, entirely need based financial aid since they don’t do scholarships). The endowment is wholly irrelevant to this discussion.

Where other university’s thrive is unrestricted giving (IE: Here’s a check made out to Temple for $400,000, do what you want with it). Temple is really bad at getting unrestricted donors, especially with the amount of alumni out there. That’s why the majority of Temple’s revenue is from tuition. .

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jmajek t1_j6o9zej wrote

Very interesting, thanks for the explanation. TIL.

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