Educational consultant Steven Roy Goodman looks at Harvard’s decision to spend a little more money in order to slightly lower tuition bills for admitted students. The university’s underlying intent, he writes, is “to make sure that Congress doesn’t mandate that universities spend five percent of their endowment funds every year, as private foundations are required to do.” Goodman crunches the numbers and pronounces Harvard’s generosity “a preemptive move” and “quite a trick,” that is, to:
spend at best a tiny fraction of the endowment, while reducing growing political pressure in Washington and around the country that could potentially cost the university more than 10 times the additional amount of financial aid. (Boston Globe)