Last spring, Hillary Clinton was paid $300,000 for giving a talk at UCLA. As we read here, the Daily Bruin subsequently did an online poll to see what students thought about that expenditure. A substantial plurality (48 percent) agreed that “large sums are inappropriate and demonstrate poor prioritizing on the part of the university and the Luskin lecture series.” Another 27 percent thought it unfortunate that such a large sum had been spent but thought that UCLA might not be able to get “the same level of notable speakers” without paying so much. (Hillary and many other “notable”speakers give pat speeches that are about as enlightening as elevator music, so what’s the big deal about bringing them to campus at great expense?) Finally, 21 percent of respondents said that it was worth the money.

I think it illustrates the point that Henry Manne recently made in this Pope Center piece that non-profit managers just take their profits through their spending choices. They aren’t allowed to pocket excess revenues, so they spend the money on things they like, such as opportunities to rub elbows with famous political figures.

This kind of thing is terribly widespread. Several years ago, East Carolina history professor Tony Papalas wrote this piece about the absurd talk Gloria Steinem gave on campus, for $10,000. Intellectual content less than zero, but she pocketed a hefty check. Tony later told me that there had been an effort to get Al Gore to speak, but that his price tag (as I recall, $175,000 plus a personal jet to transport the former veep to and from the Greenville, NC campus) was too high. At least sometimes, college presidents can say “no.”