Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why can't Ivies cope with losing a few hundred million?

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 311 posts

Re: Why can't Ivies cope with losing a few hundred million?

#201

Post by otterley »

jimbokun wrote: post #102
epistasis wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a presidential candidate promises to break the law in his campaign, that does not give him the authority to break the law. We are a constitutional republic and the constitution must be followed. It's quite clear that the current President does not give a damn about the constitution, know anything about it, or have any compunction about blatant violation of the constitution. > Otherwise, all authority in the execut…

> If a presidential candidate promises to break the law in his campaign, that does not give him the authority to break the law. The Supreme Court ruled otherwise.

That’s not exactly what they held. They held that the President is immune from prosecution for official acts. Prosecutorial immunity doesn’t mean his conduct is not unlawful; it means he can’t be criminally prosecuted for it. That distinction is important because it doesn’t prevent courts from issuing injunctions. And, as stated by others, the immunity is extended only to official acts. What constitutes an official act isn’t super clear yet, but I think it’s safe to assume that golfing isn’t an official act.

Re: Why can't Ivies cope with losing a few hundred million?

#202

Post by [deleted] »

SoftTalker wrote: post #170
ok_dad wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, when Congress passes a budget, it’s actually a law that must be executed by the executive. There are actually other laws against impoundment and against the executive changing the budget. Trump is literally breaking the law but no one really cares to discuss that anymore since the gish gallop has be so quick this term.

AIUI Congress has not passed a budget in a long time. They pass "continuing resolutions" and they fund broad categories of spending and leave the details up to the funded entities (which then falls under the executive branch). If Congress wants to fund something specific, they need to pass a law or budget that names that specific thing and how much they are appropriating. They aren't doing that.

[deleted]

Re: Why can't Ivies cope with losing a few hundred million?

#203

Post by kccqzy »

ssalazar wrote: post #168

This author presumably understands but buries the lede that for an endowment of $15 billion a university would typically only spend 5%, or $750 million, annually. So "a mere $400m" is over half of the annual funds from the endowment (not including tuition income and donations) that might be available to a university with such an endowment. It should be relatively obvious that spending into the principal of an endowme…

At a scale of centuries, monetary units themselves become highly unstable. On this time scale it was recently that people thought deflation was good for the economy, and that spending 5% every year would be reckless.

Re: Why can't Ivies cope with losing a few hundred million?

#204

Post by vonmoltke »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #138
vonmoltke wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are standard, unsecured bonds. They're not loans against anything in the endowment.

Right, and the endowment already uses leverage, so many of the endowment's assets will already serve as security for loans.

Sure, but that's margin trading. These bonds have nothing to do with the endowment.

Re: Why can't Ivies cope with losing a few hundred million?

#205

Post by deepsun »

snickerbockers wrote: post #44
Kapura wrote: post #11

This framing conveniently ignores the question of whether the president should have the authority to single-handedly withhold funding for universities, broadly considered to be one of the foundational pillars of America's strength in the 20th century. While I think it's interesting and answers the specific question it raises, it's wild that the economist has just accepted that the president has dictatorial powers.

America is a democracy, not a bureaucracy. The executive branch is governed by a single representative elected by the people. It is becoming increasingly apparent that the people didn't make a great choice this time but our constitutional republic is also one of the foundational pillars of american strength and trump being an idiot doesn't change that. The judicial branch has authority to stop him but they're only su…

> people didn't make a great choice

Choices. Congress can overturn any president's order, but they do nothing.

Re: Why can't Ivies cope with losing a few hundred million?

#206

Post by rayiner »

Kapura wrote: post #11

This framing conveniently ignores the question of whether the president should have the authority to single-handedly withhold funding for universities, broadly considered to be one of the foundational pillars of America's strength in the 20th century. While I think it's interesting and answers the specific question it raises, it's wild that the economist has just accepted that the president has dictatorial powers.

The word "dictatorial" doesn't apply here. What we're talking about is government funding being provided to private universities. And Congress hasn't appropriated specific amounts of money to specific universities. It has created a pool of funds and given the executive branch discretion to allocate those funds. The powers of the executive branch are invested in the president. See Article II, Section 1 ("The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.").

Congress, moreover, has enacted laws that use those funds as a hook to influence the behavior of private universities. Specifically, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 allows the executive branch to deny federal funds to universities that discriminate on the basis of race. Now, it just so happens that, in 2023, Harvard university, among others, was found by the Supreme Court to have flagrantly violated that law: https://www.ed.gov/media/document/dear-colleague-letter-sffa...

There is nothing "dictatorial" about the President withholding taxpayer dollars from a university that is in violation of the law, where Congress has authorized the executive branch to do so. Indeed, I'm at a loss to understand who else you think has the power to do this, if not the President?

Re: Why can't Ivies cope with losing a few hundred million?

#207

Post by [deleted] »

didgetmaster wrote: post #111
gryfft wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> cheering on the Biden administration for doing similar things from the opposite angle What is the #1 thing you consider "a similar thing from an opposite angle?"

The complete disregard for our immigration laws was probably the biggest thing, even though there were a number of things that came close. Millions were let across our borders with almost no vetting whatsoever. Criminals came in freely from all over the world bringing drugs, violence, and human trafficking with them. The Biden administration acted more like a travel agent than a border enforcement force. Anyone who s…

[deleted]

Re: Why can't Ivies cope with losing a few hundred million?

#208

Post by treis »

mmooss wrote: post #185
eastbound wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Duke lacrosse what the epitome of “Guilty because male”… which made the wind turn around and you have a situation to deal with now. All of this because people don’t want the left’s “Guilty because male” or “because [race]” solution, and they made it known through the ballots. For those who don’t know: Under Title IX, in summary, accusers of rape have all rights for their case to be treated by internal boards in the u…

The sexual assault allegations against Duke lacrosse players were headed for criminal court. They are unresolved because powerful people prevented them and their alleged victim from having a day in court, evidence and arguments being heard from both sides, and a jury rendering a verdict. Instead their parents did everything possible to keep it out of court (why?).

They aren't unresolved. They were dropped by the state. The initial prosecutor was disbarred and (briefly) went to jail for his misconduct.

Re: Why can't Ivies cope with losing a few hundred million?

#209

Post by drjasonharrison »

treis wrote: post #131
mattlutze wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too many people think these are funds to just run the universities. By and large, what is being withheld are funds for research. Federally-funded academic science often looks like: 1. The university + government fund/run a project 2. Project creates new knowledge (cool!) 3. The government gets a pretty awesome license to use that knowledge 4. The government more often than not gives that knowledge away (or offers gre…

This is somewhat disingenuous. Something like half of the grant is handed over to the University as overhead. Much of that is legit to cover things like labs but a lot of it goes to a cover a massive amount of administrative bloat. Also, nobody really objects to the research that leads directly to stuff private industry can use. That's not what people want to cut.

Antedote:

When I was a PhD student at the University of British Columbia in the Department of Computer Science research grant proposals included budgets for overhead. This was often, if I recall correctly, 10% of the overall equipment and salary budget. This was deemed a tax collected by the department and used to:

- pay IT staff salaries - pay IT hardware and service costs (storage, communication) - etc

Other costs on the research grant would include:

- hardware purchases: personal computers, specialized equipment, compute and storage servers - graduate student and postdoctoral student salaries - travel costs to conferences for students - consumables (if any)

Again, in Canada, there are various types of research grants. For example, the "Research Tools and Instruments grants program" will pay the entire cost of the equipment. This includes: shipping, customs fees, warranty/service contracts, software licensing, on-site training.

https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ResearchPortal-PortailDeRecher...

Note that travel, salary and benefits, consumables, renovations, lab infrastructure are not allowed.

For other types of grants the institution's "tax rate" is usually specified by the Department of Research, and can be as high as 25%. UBC hides it's rates behind a portal, but Simon Fraser University has a description of them: https://www.sfu.ca/research/researcher-resources/fund-my-res...

I won't speak to the amount of "administrative bloat" that universities have experienced during my two decades post graduation. While it exists, a tax rate of 25% seems quite reasonable when you consider the overall costs of research at a university compared to equivalent commercial office/lab space.

Re: Why can't Ivies cope with losing a few hundred million?

#210

Post by p_j_w »

didgetmaster wrote: post #111
gryfft wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> cheering on the Biden administration for doing similar things from the opposite angle What is the #1 thing you consider "a similar thing from an opposite angle?"

The complete disregard for our immigration laws was probably the biggest thing, even though there were a number of things that came close. Millions were let across our borders with almost no vetting whatsoever. Criminals came in freely from all over the world bringing drugs, violence, and human trafficking with them. The Biden administration acted more like a travel agent than a border enforcement force. Anyone who s…

> Millions were let across our borders with almost no vetting whatsoever. Criminals came in freely from all over the world bringing drugs, violence, and human trafficking with them. The Biden administration acted more like a travel agent than a border enforcement force. Anyone who spoke up about it, was attacked.

> Millions were let across our borders with almost no vetting whatsoever. Criminals came in freely from all over the world bringing drugs, violence, and human trafficking with them. The Biden administration acted more like a travel agent than a border enforcement force. Anyone who spoke up about it, was attacked.

Asserted without evidence, dismissed without evidence.

Post reply on HN