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Monday, December 11, 2006

29 Billion for
20,000 Students


Nice description, as congressional committees begin to circle, of the nonsensical non-profit status of many American universities. The writer is Holly K. Hacker, in the Dallas Morning News. Some excerpts:

...More than 100 presidents at four-year colleges and universities make at least $500,000, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.

...American University was paying $800,000 to Benjamin Ladner as its president. Then an investigation found he had spent thousands more on such decidedly noneducational expenses as a personal chef and engagement party for his son. Trustees ousted Dr. Ladner last year, but with delicious irony, gave him a severance package worth $3.7 million.

Endowments raise more eyebrows, with some so massive they smack of hoarding. Harvard University tops the list with more than $29 billion, for a campus of 20,000 students. Meanwhile, the total cost to attend Harvard is about $45,000 this year.

And no talk of exorbitant college spending would be complete without athletics. The House Ways and Means Committee picked up that flaming torch this fall, asking the NCAA to explain why sports programs at its member colleges should stay tax-exempt.

You could almost hear the sarcasm dripping in a letter Committee Chairman Bill Thomas sent to the NCAA, with questions like, "How does playing major college football or men's basketball in a highly commercialized, profit-seeking, entertainment environment further the educational purpose of your member institutions?"

The NCAA responded, why of course, college athletics are integral to the educational experience. But it's funny, just in time for bowl season, a study from the University of Central Florida tells us several bowl-bound colleges fail to graduate even half of their football players. Reigning national champ Texas came in second-to-last place at 40 percent. (Thank God for San Jose State, which had 32 percent).

Over on the Senate side, the Finance Committee has its own list of questions. Last week, Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa noted that colleges and universities can issue tax-exempt bonds. For all the federal and local tax benefits universities get, they respond, as he put it, with "a bad triple play of big tuition increases, expanding endowments and now very, very high salaries for college presidents."

So, he asked, should colleges with big endowments have to spend some of that money on tuition for working families? Should some tax breaks depend on how much colleges keep tuition in check?

Meanwhile, the Internal Revenue Service says it will look more closely at college revenues and spending that aren't directly related to education. It also vows to look at "supporting organizations," such as booster organizations that generate money for a school.

In a letter explaining why, the IRS wrote, "We find that some of these organizations have little activity and do not provide meaningful support to the charity they claim to support."