eli5: Why do schools like Harvard need donors ?
In: Economics
Universities always could use more money to stay at the cutting edge of their research fields.
Also which institution would say no to billions in donations?
how else are the top chain people going to make seven figures?
They don’t. They are wealth management funds that also happen to run school.
Harvard University endowment has like 50B. Other big ones like Yale, Princeton and Stanford also have over 30B each.
School fees only get you so far. High Ivy League school fees can cover high Ivy league faculty salaries, but if you need to build a new lab or a new wing for your library, thats a few million dollars that the school doesnt have lying around. Donors can finance these, while getting some kickback perks and/or getting their kids into the school and/or getting a tax writeoff
They are less schools and more research institutions. Teaching is a side hustle, not the main business of those institutions. Researching stuffs consumes an obscene amount of money that even the high tuition those schools charge wouldn’t be enough to cover.
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