We must meet very different plutocrats, that's all I can say.
[deleted]
Plutocrat donors are shaping the agenda at elite universities
21–30 of 40 posts
Re: Plutocrat donors are shaping the agenda at elite universities
#22Shouldn't elite universities already be independent? The Ivy Leagues for instance have stupidly large endowment funds for one for that exact purpose! They don't seem to be using them in "burn happy" ways either like free tuition to all or funding large ammounts into their own research funding. It could be pathological greed of getting more than they have ability or desire to spend - particularly if it is their job to…
per se
Sorry.
Re: Plutocrat donors are shaping the agenda at elite universities
#23Shouldn't elite universities already be independent? The Ivy Leagues for instance have stupidly large endowment funds for one for that exact purpose! They don't seem to be using them in "burn happy" ways either like free tuition to all or funding large ammounts into their own research funding. It could be pathological greed of getting more than they have ability or desire to spend - particularly if it is their job to…
Most of the Ivies and Duke and Stanford have free tuition for middle class and lower income students.
Re: Plutocrat donors are shaping the agenda at elite universities
#24Tech entrepreneur Martha Lane Fox objected to the Oxford gift on Twitter this week, saying that the money should be used for climate crisis work. “Something is broken with these models of philanthropy,” she told me. “The greatest challenge of our time is whether we will have a planet in a decade. That’s where we have got to be focusing our attention.”
First of all, does anyone actually believe that we won't have a planet in a decade? That type of hyperbole doesn't seem at place in an FT article.
Secondly, who's to say that the £150m donated to Oxford university won't help climate change? We need scientists, administrators and many other roles to accomplish anything. Oxford seems like a pretty decent place for such people to get their education.
Re: Plutocrat donors are shaping the agenda at elite universities
#25This sort of thing has been going on for a while. https://publicintegrity.org/federal-politics/koch-foundation... > In 2007, when the Charles Koch Foundation considered giving millions of dollars to Florida State University’s economics department, the offer came with strings attached. > First, the curriculum it funded must align with the libertarian, deregulatory economic philosophy of Charles Koch, the billionaire i…
Isn't more libertarian influence on universities a positive thing? They are currently deeply, deeply influenced by the far left. Getting more diversity of thought seems like a win for everyone.
Re: Plutocrat donors are shaping the agenda at elite universities
#26What a absolutely terrible article. There is little information and less cogent argument.
This is "Community Shopper" level journalism (except for the opening line, "When I was at Harvard...")
Re: Plutocrat donors are shaping the agenda at elite universities
#27Re: Plutocrat donors are shaping the agenda at elite universities
#28This sort of thing has been going on for a while. https://publicintegrity.org/federal-politics/koch-foundation... > In 2007, when the Charles Koch Foundation considered giving millions of dollars to Florida State University’s economics department, the offer came with strings attached. > First, the curriculum it funded must align with the libertarian, deregulatory economic philosophy of Charles Koch, the billionaire i…
Isn't more libertarian influence on universities a positive thing? They are currently deeply, deeply influenced by the far left. Getting more diversity of thought seems like a win for everyone.
The "good" universities in the US are very much postmodern left institutions. The Koch money barely moves the needle at all.
Re: Plutocrat donors are shaping the agenda at elite universities
#29There is an old joke about on what shade of pink the FT is printed, where officially it is called "salmon," but more privately readers call it, "parlour."
As a former subscriber, this article is about the quality you can expect since the death or retirement of a number of their great writers. Gillian Tett keeps the whole thing afloat as the rest of their staff writers haven't written anything brave or challenging in almost a decade.
I don't mind that donors are putting riders on their "gifts," because funding a chair in something niche is how the system always worked. It is also a bulwark against populism from both sides and against political expediency and revolutionary zeal. The university system used to be for an elite so tiny it didn't matter, where now it's the gatekeeper institution to the middle class, almost like the way mandatory military service for citizenship was, but for a managerial society. Imposing fashionable ideas on the whole system as a means to undermine any foundation for opposition to them is cynical and dishonest.