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(Tenured Radical)

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

THE CONTENT OF THEIR CHARACTER


In an incalculable blow to Harvard University's solvency, its top money men resigned en masse today, tired of incessant carping from alumni and, er, other interested observers (see UD post dated 10/17/04) about the up to $35 million each of them got in annual compensation from the non-profit institution.

Harvard's $22.6 billion endowment is only just managing to stay at twice the value of Yale's (its closest money rival), and this turn of events bodes ill for the maintenance of that sum. All of the economists with whom UD consulted agreed that with the departure of Jack Meyer and his cohort, and their inevitable replacement by, as one financial manager put it to UD, "losers willing to work for ten mill," Harvard's endowment will shrink to somewhere between ten and fifteen billion dollars.

To put it most starkly: Harvard's wealth is about to slip from the GNP of Kazakhstan all the way down to the GNP of Bulgaria.



Reports from Cambridge indicate that a cloud of anxiety has descended over the campus, as students and faculty attempt to maintain confidence in the university's future even as its foundations are shaking. "Winter is upon us," said one student, clutching her scarf to her chest. "How will we make it through?"

But one faculty member, in the philosophy department, saw things differently. "People pull together in times of crisis. Maybe we've had it a little too easy at Harvard for a little too long. Let's see what this sudden economy of scarcity does for our collective character."