Everyone Hates Harvard

theodp writes: Hedge fund manager John Paulson personally took home nearly $4 billion in 2007 after convincing banks to create securities of sub-prime mortgages he could bet against. Now Harvard, which originally passed on an opportunity to join alum Paulson in his big bet, is also reaping the rewards of the nation's financial crisis as it renames its engineering school the "Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences" after receiving a staggering $400 million donation from Paulson, the largest gift in the university's history. Quartz argues that Paulson's $400 million Harvard donation just reinforces inequality. Author Malcolm Gladwell took to Twitter to voice his distaste (sampling: 1. "It came down to helping the poor or giving the world's richest university $400 mil it doesn't need. Wise choice John!" 2. "If billionaires don't step up, Harvard will soon be down to its last $30 billion." 3. "It's going to be named the John Paulson School of Financial Engineering.") And, in Everyone Hates Harvard, Philip Greenspun notes that even WSJ readers reacted with vitriol to the news. "I would have thought that Paulson would be a hero to market-following WSJ readers," remarks Greenspun, "not a villain."

Comments

Re: Harvard is the right place

[Crashmarik]

Like the "mass murderer" who brought us universal healthcare, drastically improving and saving countless American's lives?

You're thinking of the wrong school. Mass murderers have daddy buy their way into being a C student at Yale.

Has he had a drone strike today, or caused another country to collapse yet ?

I will give him this his policy in the middle east is so bad, and has made the U.S. look so useless he has Israel and Saudi Arabia working together

http://www.bloombergview.com/a...

Re: Harvard is the right place

[Microlith]

There was an 11 year hunt for Bin Laden

Was there? The whole thing was classified at best. Keep in mind that Bush explicitly stated that he dhttp://news.slashdot.org/story/15/06/07/0313256/everyone-hates-harvard#idn't care about Osama anymore, once he got into Iraq.

Re:Don't give money to your alma mater.

[SuperBanana]

Not only am I well aware of how an endowment is operated -- this is a regular topic of faculty meetings, for god's sake

Then don't say ignorant things like this:

"A bit of data: Harvard's endowment amounts to $1.7 million per student. With a reasonable return on endowment investment, hey could quite literally abolish tuition forever if they wanted to"

You could also demonstrate some basic knowledge on the subject by showing that you understand "Harvard University" isn't "undergraduate" - that's Harvard COLLEGE. Here you go again:

A 3.5% return on Harvard's 1.7 million per student endowment would give an annual income of $60,000, which is equal to Harvard's tuition plus room and board.

Why do you think room and board at Harvard College is $60K?

What do you think will happen when you direct all the investment income into student tuition and board?

Well? Here's a big hint (oooo, am I being "condescending" again?): paying everyone's tuition via the investment income doesn't change REVENUE. So what pays for all the things the endowment income WAS paying for, but isn't anymore?

Huh?

Well, Mr. Fucking I Teach Physics? Ever heard the expression "rob Peter to pay Paul"?

Re:Why?

[ChrisMaple]

That you are too lazy to do the research yourself is all the demonstration that's needed to show that you're part of the problem.