Why don’t public colleges and universities salt away large sums of cash during good times to tide them over during bad times? Because the internal politics won’t allow large sums to sit undisturbed. Because the external politics are such that when times get bad, legislators see those reserves as excuses to cut funding. (Apparently now in Massachusetts, the state is even applying this to endowments at private universities!)
Why don't governments do so? Same reason.
BTW, the author of that post is a flaming liberal. You can tell by his second paragraph.
College funding is one of those mysteries I will never understand. Our "flagship" university has the largest endowment in the U.S. thanks to mineral rights and oil leases. Yet since deregulation, they have consistently raised tuition at about an 8% level. At the same time, they are big on offering what amounts to very costly full ride scholarships to athletes who for the most part, fail to graduate on time, if at all. So the message is, universities are running farm teams for pro leagues and allowing the regular kids to foot the bill. Nice.
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