http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/05/14/beck.collegeendowment/index.html

I found this a good read. Never even thought about this before.

Quote :

"arvard University, which has the largest endowment in the country, has a total of $34.6 billion. To put into perspective just how much money that is, consider that the largest charitable foundation in the world, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, has a total endowment of $37.3 billion."

Quote :

"For what's been estimated to be about $300 million a year (less than 1 percent of their endowment's value) Harvard could completely waive tuition, room and board for every single one of their students. Instead, they announced an increase in those fees of about 3.5 percent for next year. Being a student at Harvard will now cost a staggering $47,215 a year."

Quote :

"Under their proposal, all endowments over a billion dollars would be taxed at 2.5 percent, a rate any wealthy individual or corporation would salivate over. T"

Quote :

""You'd be taxing success here," Kevin Casey, Harvard's associate vice president for government, community"

LOL is that not what income/capital gains/and estate taxes on individuals/corporations already do.

Quote :

" Does anyone else find it ironic that universities overflowing with liberal professors (a 2005 study revealed that 72 percent of professors view themselves that way) embrace conservative values only when it suits them? "

Go Figure

Quote :

" As a conservative, I don't believe in taxing anyone just because they have a lot of money or are an easy target. That applies to individuals, businesses and universities. I believe that taxing success discourages success, and that's not what America stands for. But I also believe in something else: consistency and accountability. And that's where most of our colleges and universities fail miserably."

Good going; glen beck has to be one of my favorite columnists for cnn.

5/15/2008 10:12:56 AM

Quote :

"Most of our colleges and universities are only working to spread the radical political views of some of their professors."

Yeah, that's not a horrendously inaccurate statement at all.

I understand what he's saying, and the message resonates on some levels. Liberals only seem to be liberal with other people's money. Once they have their own they seem to get mysteriously conservative. However, I can virtually guarantee you that the crusty old white guys who actually run Harvard (not the profs or the students) are probably some of the most conservative guys in the world. In fact, I bet if you surveyed the people at Harvard business you'd find opposite stats from the general Harvard populace (law, english, history, the sciences, etc.).

Besides, Harvard is a private institution, the real question needs to be asked of public universities with endowments. Government should not be allowed to have a large surplus or a large debt.

5/15/2008 11:32:20 AM

A number of conservatives have discussed this very topic for a while now. Though I'm not a regular listener, I heard Mark Levin mention it a few weeks ago.

The taxation of windfall profits on oil is revealed as the joke it is when the same approach is applied to other products.

Quote :

"Never mind that the Federal Trade Commission has never found evidence of price-gouging when Congress has asked the FTC to investigate oil prices. Or that oil companies aren't more profitable than other manufacturing industries, except at times when the price of the product they sell is soaring. Or that taxing businesses' excess profits -- How much is excess? -- will lead to a decline in oil exploration and development. Or that taxing business usually means taxing consumers."

Quote :

"'Total taxes from all oil industry sources exceeded the combined profits of all companies in every year but the last three,' Hodge said. 'It's a boom/bust industry,' says Jerry Taylor, senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington. 'Prices are more volatile, returns are more volatile.' Certainly the history of windfall profits taxes on oil doesn't justify Congress's laser-like focus. In November 2005, when Congress held a show trial to query Big Oil on the nature of Big Profits, Hodge recycled a Congressional Research Service report that found the 1980s windfall profits tax, which was really an excise tax, depressed domestic production and increased reliance on imports."

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_baum&sid=aBmTqBSruseU

5/15/2008 3:29:04 PM

Greg Mankiw (pretty much a top 3 living economist, Harvard professor) discussed this in his blog twice in the past week

http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/

5/15/2008 3:44:01 PM

a 2.5% tax on endowments of a billion+ is a pittance, especially when we have a war to pay for and clean up after.

after reading the article though, it's pretty poorly written. The guy, apart from having a blatant bias that has obviously distorted his perspective, doesn't seem to realize the purpose of an endowment.

5/15/2008 7:22:05 PM

Maybe part of the reason people give large sums of money to universities is that it is the one of the few places you can put your money without the government stealing a big chunk of it. This has nothing to do with how the universities are managing and/or spending or not spending their endowments. Make no mistake this is just about the government looking for more $$$. Just like cigarette and beer tax, if the government really cared about the health and well-being of the poor they would simply ban rather than tax. Calling the activity of X "irresponsible" or "inequitable" etc... is just a smoke screen for raising taxes. Its a bait and switch. Ironically, if anybody in this country needs to be taxed for inequitable distribution of resources it is congress itself. Lets tax congress. Every bill they pass their own personal income tax rate should get a little higher or something like that.

5/15/2008 10:54:56 PM