Two issues bother me about Yale's endowment - and those of Harvard and Princeton and many other schools. First, the men and women who run these endowments are fantastically well paid by most standards, running into the high six figures, sometimes even seven or eight figures annually. Their pay is on a par with partners at major investment banks, although it is not in the same league as top hedge fund managers. But they earn that pay largely because they get into these fabulous private-equity deals that most of the rest of us in the Yale family cannot enjoy.

That is, they take the big fat endowment contributed by us little minnow alumni as a group, thereby getting Yale into great deals, and are then paid spectacularly as individuals for managing the money we gave for love of alma mater. I would not for a moment begrudge them the money if they were wizard stock pickers. But to think that they are players in the private-equity game because we alums donated money that we thought would go to scholarships - that's a bit painful.




…Second, and more troubling, the immense scale of the endowment and its gains dwarfs my pitiful little gifts. If Mr. Swensen and his pals are making a few billion a year for Yale in capital gains, say $3 billion, that's equal to about one million gifts of $3,000 from individual alumni. But there are only a few tens of thousands of us alums, so what we give has to be totally insignificant unless we are terribly rich. Why give the money, then? (For that matter, why charge tuition? Compared with the gains that the endowment is making, tuition is a drop in the bucket of Yale's income.)




As for my contributions, maybe we could look at it this way: I support an organization called the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, which provides social, emotional and material support to widows and widowers and children of military personnel who have died in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. If I contribute $10,000 to this group, the gift makes a huge difference to it. I support an organization called Soldiers' Angels that sends support packages to military personnel and their families. If I give $5,000, it means a lot. I also support the Friends of Animals Foundation, a kennel for abandoned dogs and cats on the west side of Los Angeles. If I give $15,000, it saves many animals' lives.

Gifts of these sizes are virtually meaningless to Yale, so why bother giving to it? My resources are very far from limitless, so why not give where it makes a difference?

Is it possible that giving to Yale right now is a bit like giving gifts to Goldman Sachs or Brown Brothers Harriman? I am sure that there are fine people in those places, and investment bankers are almost always intelligent, hard-working men and women. I enjoy their company. But they really don't need my money, and other people do.

I love Yale, and I am deeply grateful to Yale. It is a star in my sky every day and night. But at this point, is it an investment bank or a school? I am really not sure, and this troubles me. I would love to be shown that I am wrong, but I am not certain that I am.