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2025 Hiring Pause

hr.cornell.edu

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Re: 2025 Hiring Pause

#101

Post by Upvoter33 »

DidYaWipe wrote: post #96

Can't speak in regard to Cornell, but I think it's well past time to revoke the tax-exempt status of schools that rip students off with sky-high tuition while sitting on huge endowments. It's even worse when they're blowing money on athletic programs and new stadiums. My university jacked tuition 24% in one year; and when asked why, they essentially said "because everyone else did." For this and other offensive behav…

Let's say a University has $1m in the bank. In this case, they decide to use it to "endow" a "chaired professorship" to retain some top faculty member. The reason it works - the professor stays at said University - is because they give the professor the proceeds from the endowment (usually, this is like 5% expected rate of return, or in this case, $50k), which he/she uses for their research.

So now, should the University instead reallocate funds like that, thus (perhaps) losing top faculty, to (marginally) lower tuition?

Similarly, imagine a university raises millions of dollars for scholarships. Once again, they use the proceeds to fund the scholarships. Should they instead use the principal (as you're kind of suggesting), thus eventually running out of funds, or should they keep the endowment, and thus keep giving out scholarships?

Before condemning endowments, it would be better to first understand how they're being used. For example, if you found out that some large fraction was for student scholarships, would that change your position?

(to be clear, I'm not particularly on one side or the other here; I just think more nuanced positions are needed...)

Re: 2025 Hiring Pause

#102

Post by gruez »

EternalFury wrote: post #7

If anything in any country should be free, it should be education. And, obviously, the administration of education should never be a for-profit venture. Valuing democracy and being able to select sensible leaders depends on it.

>If anything in any country should be free, it should be education.

I can't tell you're being serious or you're being hyperbolic for the sake of defending education. Most people, given the choice would rather get free food, water, or healthcare.

Re: 2025 Hiring Pause

#103

Post by givemeethekeys »

gruez wrote: post #99
DidYaWipe wrote: post #96

Can't speak in regard to Cornell, but I think it's well past time to revoke the tax-exempt status of schools that rip students off with sky-high tuition while sitting on huge endowments. It's even worse when they're blowing money on athletic programs and new stadiums. My university jacked tuition 24% in one year; and when asked why, they essentially said "because everyone else did." For this and other offensive behav…

>but I think it's well past time to revoke the tax-exempt status of schools that rip students off with sky-high tuition while sitting on huge endowments As other people have mentioned in this thread, the point of endowments is to provide a steady source of income for the university's activities, not a piggy bank you can raid. >It's even worse when they're blowing money on athletic programs and new stadiums. I'm sure…

How convenient. Call money something else to continue ripping people off.

Re: 2025 Hiring Pause

#104

Post by archagon »

dingnuts wrote: post #94
fsh wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With an optimistic 10% annual return, this would amount to 1/5 of Cornell's budget.

then they need to find some cuts because Uncle Sam has a maxed out credit card and can't keep making up the difference whether he wants to or not

Uncle Sam is intending to go even further into debt for tax cuts.

Re: 2025 Hiring Pause

#105

Post by lolinder »

DidYaWipe wrote: post #96

Can't speak in regard to Cornell, but I think it's well past time to revoke the tax-exempt status of schools that rip students off with sky-high tuition while sitting on huge endowments. It's even worse when they're blowing money on athletic programs and new stadiums. My university jacked tuition 24% in one year; and when asked why, they essentially said "because everyone else did." For this and other offensive behav…

> rip students off with sky-high tuition while sitting on huge endowments

As has been mentioned elsewhere, sitting on endowments is what you're supposed to do—you don't burn through the principal, you spend the interest. The point of an endowment is to provide a sustainable baseline income to keep the school going forever, it's not like an investment round where you're expected to use up the runway in an effort to reach profitability through other income streams.

> It's even worse when they're blowing money on athletic programs and new stadiums.

Depending on which sports you're talking about and which schools, this might actually be an example of an investment that is expected to yield a return. At a lot of schools the sports programs subsidize the academics, so having a nice and roomy football stadium is actually a pretty sound investment into income streams that benefit everyone, even students with no interest in football.

Re: 2025 Hiring Pause

#106

Post by acdha »

znpy wrote: post #75

> To ensure that we continue to thrive in an even more complex future, we must commit, across every part of our institution, to a sustainable budget today. Are they implicitly admitting they have been living on an unsustainable budget so far? Seeing other comments bringing up the numbers of staff vs students+faculty would suggest that’s the case…

Their budget is unsustainable in the same way that your budget is unsustainable if your boss cuts your pay. They have setup education and research programs based on decades of past funding, but that was unexpectedly subject to illegal reductions with the promise of permanent reductions, nothing like which has happened before and which is completely disconnected from any kind of economic necessity. It’s not like we had some kind of natural disaster or pandemic which actually shrunk the economy and tax revenue but simply a political power play trying to cancel perceived class enemies.

Re: 2025 Hiring Pause

#107

Post by DidYaWipe »

Upvoter33 wrote: post #101
DidYaWipe wrote: post #96

Can't speak in regard to Cornell, but I think it's well past time to revoke the tax-exempt status of schools that rip students off with sky-high tuition while sitting on huge endowments. It's even worse when they're blowing money on athletic programs and new stadiums. My university jacked tuition 24% in one year; and when asked why, they essentially said "because everyone else did." For this and other offensive behav…

Let's say a University has $1m in the bank. In this case, they decide to use it to "endow" a "chaired professorship" to retain some top faculty member. The reason it works - the professor stays at said University - is because they give the professor the proceeds from the endowment (usually, this is like 5% expected rate of return, or in this case, $50k), which he/she uses for their research. So now, should the Univer…

Thanks for the reply and valid points. But I didn't say they should deplete the endowments; I'm saying that they are already garnering significant income from them (if they're large and invested competently).

And I still won't excuse raising tuitions sky-high "just because." And while I don't know the economics of athletic programs, screwing students while building three stadiums in a couple of decades isn't a good look.

Re: 2025 Hiring Pause

#108

Post by DidYaWipe »

lolinder wrote: post #105
DidYaWipe wrote: post #96

Can't speak in regard to Cornell, but I think it's well past time to revoke the tax-exempt status of schools that rip students off with sky-high tuition while sitting on huge endowments. It's even worse when they're blowing money on athletic programs and new stadiums. My university jacked tuition 24% in one year; and when asked why, they essentially said "because everyone else did." For this and other offensive behav…

> rip students off with sky-high tuition while sitting on huge endowments As has been mentioned elsewhere, sitting on endowments is what you're supposed to do—you don't burn through the principal, you spend the interest. The point of an endowment is to provide a sustainable baseline income to keep the school going forever, it's not like an investment round where you're expected to use up the runway in an effort to re…

Valid points, but I didn't say deplete the endowments. And I am curious about the economics of sports programs and exactly where the proceeds go.

Re: 2025 Hiring Pause

#109

Post by DidYaWipe »

gruez wrote: post #99
DidYaWipe wrote: post #96

Can't speak in regard to Cornell, but I think it's well past time to revoke the tax-exempt status of schools that rip students off with sky-high tuition while sitting on huge endowments. It's even worse when they're blowing money on athletic programs and new stadiums. My university jacked tuition 24% in one year; and when asked why, they essentially said "because everyone else did." For this and other offensive behav…

>but I think it's well past time to revoke the tax-exempt status of schools that rip students off with sky-high tuition while sitting on huge endowments As other people have mentioned in this thread, the point of endowments is to provide a steady source of income for the university's activities, not a piggy bank you can raid. >It's even worse when they're blowing money on athletic programs and new stadiums. I'm sure…

I never said to deplete the endowments.

Not sure what you're on about with "the right" and "humanities programs." Do "humanities programs" bring in loads of cash?

Re: 2025 Hiring Pause

#110

Post by acdha »

dingnuts wrote: post #94
fsh wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With an optimistic 10% annual return, this would amount to 1/5 of Cornell's budget.

then they need to find some cuts because Uncle Sam has a maxed out credit card and can't keep making up the difference whether he wants to or not

Uncle Sam doesn’t have a credit limit: Uncle Sam has chosen to take on debt so rich people can avoid paying taxes. If we had rich people pay at the same rates they paid a few decades ago, didn’t have caps on the maximum amount of taxable income for social security, etc. we could return to the balanced budget we had at the turn of the century before the Republicans lowered taxes for the express political goal of forcing program cuts.
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