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KamaAina

(78,249 posts)
Wed Mar 9, 2016, 12:28 AM Mar 2016

Universities Are Becoming Billion-Dollar Hedge Funds With Schools Attached

http://www.thenation.com/article/universities-are-becoming-billion-dollar-hedge-funds-with-schools-attached/

Have you heard the latest wisecrack about Harvard? People are calling it a hedge fund with a university attached. They have a point—Harvard stands at the troubling intersection between higher education and high finance, with over 15 percent of its massive $38 billion endowment invested in hedge funds. That intersection is getting crowded. Yale’s comparatively modest $26 billion endowment, for example, made hedge fund managers $480 million in 2014, while only $170 million was spent on things like tuition assistance and fellowships for students. “I was going to donate money to Yale. But maybe it makes more sense to mail a check directly to the hedge fund of my choice,” Malcolm Gladwell tweeted last summer, causing a commotion that landed him on NPR.

What has gotten less attention is how it’s not just universities with eating clubs and legacies that are getting into the game. Many public universities are also doing so, in part because state support for education has been cut, but also to compete with richer schools by rapidly increasing their more limited wealth. Though the exact figure is hard to determine, experts I consulted estimate that over $100 billion of educational endowment money nation-wide is invested in hedge funds, costing them approximately $2.5 billion in fees in 2015 alone. The problems with hedge funds managing college endowments are manifold, going well beyond the exorbitant—some would say extortionate—fees they charge for their services.

Consider the problem of conflict of interest on endowment boards of both public and private colleges. One 2011 survey showed that 56 percent of endowments allowed board members to do business with the university. In 2013 Dartmouth came under fire when it was revealed that some trustees—including Stephen F. Mandel Jr, who was both chairman of the board of trustees and head of the hedge fund Lone Pine Capital—also managed investments for the school. The trustees were blasted in a widely cited open letter for recycling a portion of their “sky high fees” back to the university as “donations” for which they were often rewarded by having a building named in their honor....

Combine all of the above with the recent stories about hedge fund managers being exploitive sociopaths—the kind willing to inflate the price of life-saving medicine or force elementary schools in Puerto Rico to close to make a buck—and one wonders why public institutions are doing business them at all. Given the history of successful college divestment movements, one can easily imagine a provocative next step: campaigns that aim to force universities to stop doing business with hedge funds altogether. While they declined to give specifics since they are still in the planning phases, organizers I spoke to said just such a movement is brewing.


Fun fact: The author is married to Jeff Mangum, the guy from Neutral Milk Hotel. Her sister Sunaura is high on the list of my all-time favorite human beings.

http://www.sunaurataylor.org
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Universities Are Becoming Billion-Dollar Hedge Funds With Schools Attached (Original Post) KamaAina Mar 2016 OP
God, don't I know it. I work for one of them Lorien Mar 2016 #1
Tell me about it. a la izquierda Mar 2016 #5
Rather sickening, actually... Wounded Bear Mar 2016 #2
Especially ugly facet: Corporations funding GMO "research" by universities AxionExcel Mar 2016 #3
"Trahison des clercs" -- The treason of the intellectuals bemildred Mar 2016 #4

Lorien

(31,935 posts)
1. God, don't I know it. I work for one of them
Wed Mar 9, 2016, 12:33 AM
Mar 2016

Instructors get paid poorly, students and instructors get very little support, but the owners of our private University make money hand over fist. I only stay on because so many other instructors don't bother to give students their money's worth (they're too pissed about their salaries and lack of benefits).

a la izquierda

(11,784 posts)
5. Tell me about it.
Wed Mar 9, 2016, 07:15 AM
Mar 2016

I'm a professor at an R1 university. The faculty here are so poorly paid in the humanities, our adjuncts are treated dismally, and the students who work very hard are slowly realizing what a scam this is.

Oh, and we are mandated to use the very expensive and absolutely horrendous state insurance. We also cannot unionize.

Wounded Bear

(58,440 posts)
2. Rather sickening, actually...
Wed Mar 9, 2016, 12:39 AM
Mar 2016

Can we do anything without the almighty dollar being the only decision point?

AxionExcel

(755 posts)
3. Especially ugly facet: Corporations funding GMO "research" by universities
Wed Mar 9, 2016, 05:31 AM
Mar 2016
Interlocking ties between GMO industry and scientists probed for conflict of interest

According to a report in Nature, US universities, including taxpayer-supported land grant institutions, have been targeted by a private advocacy group, US Right to Know. The group is investigating collusion between the agricultural biotechnology industry and academics involved with science, economics and mass communication. The activist group has so far used the courts to compel records from 40 researchers at US public universities.

http://www.nature.com/news/gm-crop-opponents-expand-probe-into-ties-between-scientists-and-industry-1.18146

bemildred

(90,061 posts)
4. "Trahison des clercs" -- The treason of the intellectuals
Wed Mar 9, 2016, 06:48 AM
Mar 2016

Benda. This is what he means by that. Selling out to big money and power.

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