Comment by ineedaj0b | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ineedaj0b | Hacker News Reader

How are the ivy leagues NOT financially independent? People claw/cheat/do whatever it takes to get in. Ivy's employ some of the best raw IQ people we have. Endowment funds over years should blossom.

Could they be so smart to 'redline', to maximally extract as much funds from the Gov as possible while also pumping up their investments? Or might they not have managed funds well enough and truly cannot afford things?

if scenario 1) refactor expenses, pass an audit, and make a plan to build up funds. return to 75% prior budget levels

if scenario 2) refactor expenses, pass an audit, and make a plan to build up funds. return to 25% prior budget levels

*in both cases we need to remove regulations on schools so they can fire all the admin (they claim to need to keep up legally inane wild things) and pay the professors/researchers more.

Colleges and Universities are already on a downward trend; the perfect storm of declining enrollment/population numbers and AI potentially wiping out what they offer. Colleges and University were meant to be a special protected Eunuch class studying 'the dark arts', but they've publicly become known havens of scheming Eunuchs trying to overthrow the emperor. Too close to the sun

I assume they, like most orgs, make a planning based on some available budget. If the budget gets higher, they will expand. If it gets lower, they will reduce their expenses/spread. I also assume that the reduction of overhead in particular is gonna hurt such institutions _a lot_ because they have exactly planned based on that.

I cannot speak about Cornell specifically, I do not know if they have a bloated administration or superfluous expenses. But the truth is that admin stuff are necessary for supporting education and research. Having been in universities during admin reforms reducing admin stuff (claiming that they make "smart restructuring") it always negatively affects work done in the university in one way or another. Usually, it means that research staff will have to pick up some of the admin work themselves, or be offered less support doing it. As research staff are usually paid more than admin stuff, that is not necessarily effective (unless it is assumed that research stuff will be working overtime anyway). In any case, it does not seem like an efficient move most of the times, even if it seems so to the bureaucrats who make these plans.

I imagine they are, but they will still have some mindset of a business and cut spending in lieu of economic headwinds. Like pretty much every industry in the last few years.

I think the ivies will be fine. It's 99% of other universities without 10b in endowments I'm worried about.

you got the academic and economics right. but ignored the politics. academic politics is very exclusive... and the circle in it owns lots of capital. so when capital goes on strike, they fall in line.

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