Hacker News Reader

Comment by steveBK123 | Hacker News Reader

For a college with a hedge fund, <excuse me>, I mean endowment of such magnitude, and PnL.. I mean returns that generally exceed program expenses.. this is pretty gross.

View on HN

Harvard is a hedge fund which has an interest in education.

You do realize the endowment funds 1/3 of the operating budget at Harvard?

Calling it a "hedge fund" proves you don't know what you are talking about.

Does the endowment increase or decrease year over year?

Most years it increases, some years it decreases, like in the Great Recession. The University's operating costs also increase basically every year because a large percentage of staff have union negotiated increases that are hard to counterbalance with cuts elsewhere.

It seems fair to judge their priorities by the salaries they pay:

"Top salaries at HMC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Harvard, are always much higher than those of University employees. The organization manages the investment of Harvard’s endowment"

https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2020/07/harvard-highest-paid...

Seriously. Harvard's "endowment" has 50 billion at it's disposal. That's some serious money. It's continued success is partially predicated on top-notch research being done. If it somehow can't afford to pay those doing the research, it shouldn't be allowed to continue to have a hedge fund or take massive land grants, get tax breaks, etc...

Indeed, I've worked at 3 (large) hedge funds, and only 1 of the 3 is now over $50B. It wasn't even that big when I was there..

You mean a hedge fund with a sideline in education as a tax dodge.

They didn’t get filthy rich.. .I mean, so well endowed, by /giving money away/.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com