University Diaries » Quotation of the Day.

“Of course there’s income inequality,” says John Griswold, executive director of the Commonfund Institute, the research arm of Commonfund, which manages college endowments. “To say that a small number of wealthier colleges should try to solve that is utter nonsense.”

UD loves the let-them-eat-cakery of this statement about American universities with endowments in the tens of billions of dollars. First there’s the languid of course. Of course some universities are richer than half of the world’s economies. Routine stuff. Totally unremarkable. Only an idiot would want to make something of the disparity among college endowments that these numbers represent.

And then there’s the even better, second part of Griswold’s statement, in which he violently disparages a claim that no one has made. No one says that Harvard should “solve” endowment inequality. What people say is that Harvard should stop hoarding so much of its money. What people say is that Harvard graduates should consider directing their donations to needier causes. What people say is that Harvard should give its students a serious break on tuition and other costs. What people say is that if Harvard doesn’t act more responsibly in regard to its unconscionable accumulated wealth, there should start to be tax implications.

But of course… utter nonsense! It’s the Lady Augusta Bracknell school of public utterance.

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