Wotka World Wide

Thursday, November 06, 2008

Hard to believe what you can find on ESPN.com these days. From the latest TMQ:

Rich People: Stop Giving to Harvard! Recently TMQ proposed that since Harvard, Yale and Stanford are amply endowed -- $37 billion for Harvard, $23 billion for Yale and $17 billion for Stanford -- the rich cease giving to these schools, and instead donate to money-strapped institutions where the gifts will have more meaning. Update: In the past month alone, billionaire Hansjörg Wyss donated $125 million to Harvard, while Business Wire founder Lorry Lokey gave $75 million to Stanford. Wyss' gift to Harvard exceeds the entire academic endowments of Xavier, Pace, Wittenberg, Ursinus, Alfred, Millsaps and other colleges that serve mainly average people, not the mainly elites served by Harvard. Lokey's gift to Stanford exceeds the entire academic endowments of Juniata, Linfield, Sacred Heart, Hastings, Capital University, Ripon, Lenoir-Rhyne and other colleges that likewise serve those of average means rather than from privileged backgrounds. (Look up any college's endowment here; the numbers are for fiscal 2007. Harvard and a few other schools have already announced higher fiscal 2008 figures.)

TMQ's contention is that many gifts by the rich to max-status schools are not true gifts -- that is, given selflessly. Rather, they are intended to flatter the giver's ego, by associating his or her name with status. Think how much more good $125 million or $75 million would do -- how many lives would be changed in favorable ways -- at the nonelite schools mentioned in this item, or at a hundred more like them. Plus a donor who gave a large sum to an under-endowed school for average people would become a local hero and be loved by the school's community forever. Give $125 million to Harvard and you're just another filthy-rich guy with a big ego taking your place in a line of filthy-rich types with big egos.

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