Don't Require Colleges to Spend More of Their Endowments

Autor/inn/en	Mead, Dana G.; Jacobs, Jeremy M.
Titel	Don't Require Colleges to Spend More of Their Endowments
Quelle	In: Chronicle of Higher Education, 54 (2007) 11, (1 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0009-5982
Schlagwörter	Stellungnahme; Higher Education; Income; Educational Finance; Expenditures; Endowment Funds; Research Universities; Donors; Colleges + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Hochschulbildung; Hochschulsystem; Hochschulwesen; Einkommen; Bildungsfonds; Ausgaben; Stiftungsvermögen; Forschungseinrichtung; College; Hochschule; Fachhochschule
Abstract	The demand for higher education and academic research--and the costs of providing them--has risen in recent years, and the search is on for easy answers to limit the financial burdens on families and the government. The most recent suggestion has been to require colleges and universities, especially large and prestigious ones, to spend more of their endowments. Congress, for example, is considering a proposal to require institutions with big endowments to spend at least 5 percent of that money each year, the same percentage that nonprofit foundations are required to spend. Why don't universities spend as much as they can of their endowments to stop tuitions from rising, or to allow more low-income students to attend college, or to reduce the need for federal investment in scientific research? In this article, the authors argue that they already do. Colleges' and universities' spending is limited by their legal and moral responsibility to honor their donors' wishes and ensure that their endowments are at least as strong in the future as they are today. Even so, endowment spending is the single largest source of revenue for many higher education institutions. In addition, the author notes that it would be irresponsible for institutions to assume that investment returns will always grow rapidly; this basic fact governs endowment managers' spending behavior. (ERIC).
Anmerkungen	Chronicle of Higher Education. 1255 23rd Street NW Suite 700, Washington, DC 20037. Tel: 800-728-2803; e-mail: circulation@chronicle.com; Web site: http://chronicle.com/
Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10