Amar Bose To Donate Company To M.I.T.

MBC1977 writes with this eyebrow-raising news from CNN: "'The Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced Friday that [Amar] Bose, the 81-year-old founder of the sound system company that bears his name, has donated the majority of Bose Corp.'s stock to the school.' Very cool indeed!"

Comments

Midrange

[Wyatt Earp]

Maybe they'll be able to get BOSE to make equipment that is testable for reviews and has some midrange.

Re:Midrange

[MoonBuggy]

You probably didn't mean anything deep by it, but I find the choice to lump universities under the broad heading of 'charity' an interesting one. Although I think there's little better use for one's money than promoting education, my time spent at a (fairly well-regarded) American university seemed (to my godless commie foreign eyes) a surprisingly commercialised experience. It's clear just from looking at the campus that an awful lot of money is given back by alumni, and this action by Bose further confirms it, but I don't think I could ever get over the voice in the back of my head saying "What about all those times you tried to screw me out of every penny I didn't have?".

I applaud the efforts of people like Bose in giving something back, and I know this is something of a digression. It just seems odd, from my external perspective, that people are happy giving such vast gifts to organisations that treat their students in such a mercenary manner; or, I suppose, that organisations receiving such vast gifts still feel the need to squeeze their students so much...

Re:Midrange

[Russianspi]

I totally agree. My wife and I both graduated with BA's from Christian colleges. She had the typical college finance experience, with the school squeezing every penny that they could out of her, and then sending letters to her (probably for the rest of her life) asking for donations. She liked the school otherwise, but that (although typical) was/is irksome.

I, on the other hand, went to Moody Bible Institute. It is a college that aims to prepare people to do full-time Christian ministry. Since most of these graduates wind up in fields that don't have great earning potential, they don't charge tuition. I'll repeat that: they don't charge tuition. It's not an easy school to get in to, (it's certainly not for everyone) and it is by no means perfect, but it was the right fit for me. (I'm a missionary, but I'm up late tonight doing some open source coding and getting distracted by Slashdot.) Anyway, Moody avoids charging tuition by having a profitable publishing house, as well as a radio station and broadcast media company. All of the profits that they turn from these (as well as some hefty donations) are what keep the financial wheels turning at the school. When I graduated in 2005, they estimated that for my graduating class, the waived tuition amounted to a $78,000 scholarship per graduating student.

I receive letters occasionally from Moody asking for donations, and these are MUCH more easy for me to stomach. I don't have much in the way of spare money at the moment, but if/when I have the means, supporting Moody is something I'd like to do. I appreciate my education, and the fact that I could get through it without taking out ANY student loans, and I'd love to help present that opportunity to others if at all possible.

Anyway, I realize that I'm on a tangent, but I think that Moody Bible Institute is as close to a true non-profit as I've seen any university be.

Re:Midrange

[HuguesT]

To get the "message" that they are losing money on every students, Universities pull accounting tricks worthy of Hollywood. They take all of their expenses, including research and administrative related ones on the one hand, they take what students pay on the other, totally ignoring donations, and they say, "eh, student tuition is only one third of our income, therefore student are actually not paying much at all".

In reality, some studies have shown that top-level college education really costs no more than about $40k per year per student for engineering, about $80k for medicine, and sometimes as lows as $10k for maths or philosophy. Law is also cheap. If students pay $200k over 4 years, they are totally covering that. In most of Europe, students typically pay less than $10k per year, sometimes much less. Oxford and Cambridge charge about $15k per year. They seem to be doing quite well nonetheless. As it was reported here not so long ago, even top-level US-universities pay their professors a relative pittance compared with other professionals with similar qualifications.

If universities stopped admitting, they would immediately lose 1/3 of their funding, and so would have to let go of a corresponding share of their staff. They would lose their status and soon all of their donations, losing another 1/3, later they would lose all of their network and influence obtained through alumni, professors would not be needed for teaching and soon the place would be an empty, nearly pointless shell. That doesn't sound like being better off financially.

The morals is that Universities are there for teaching, and students are at the very center of their mission. Research and whatnot is indeed nice, but it is there to attract funding and top-level researcher, ensuring the quality of the teaching because beginner teachers want to join their teams and so work hard to get tenure. A few top-level researchers are also dedicated and excellent teachers, which is very nice from the university point of view, because they get to write the classical textbooks on their field, ensuring more revenues. Students and alumni are not the only teaching-related income universities get. There are many other things to say, but I'll stop.

However, saying that universities would be better off without students is utter bollocks, to be polite.

Re:Misleading headline

[samwichse]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-voting_stock

Re:M.I.T. already has an $8 billion endowment.

[Sulphur]

Why not give it to a school or schools that actually deserve the money?

FTFY

Re:Monster expensive?

[beernutz]

Monster 1 meter hdmi cable = $99

Monoprice 6Ft hdmi cable = $2.78

So, yes, monster cables are EXTREMELY expensive.