I keep trying to move on to things other than our broken college system and our broken education system in general, but the COVID situation and quarantine remote learning once again bring up the exorbitant cost of college.
Malcolm Gladwell has some extremely interesting books, and he researches some interesting questions.
Recently I ran across his podcast, Revisionist History, and I looked back over some of the older episodes.
Here he looks into how college is use their endowment. Do colleges use their endowment for perks such as gourmet food to attract more full-paying students? Or do they use their endowment to give financial aid – real financial aid, not just loans – to underprivileged students?
How should colleges and universities spend their endowments?
Gladwell is appalled that some colleges and universities are spending money on good food, instead of on financial aid to the poorest students.
The school that focuses on giving aid to the poorest students, uses up all it’s endowment money. To do that, one of the things they skimp on is food quality. We’re not talking the difference between gourmet food and good food, we’re talking bad food.
Does food quality matter when you pick a college or university?
A friend of mine was amused when her son declared that he was going to pick his university based on how good their food was! She thought that was really silly. But all things being equal, that didn’t bother her too much.
I thought food quality was actually a really good measure.
We’re learning more and more that the quality of food we eat affects our long-term health. And college students’ bodies are still young and maturing. The quality of food they eat is probably even more important than for an adult. So not only is it important for us personally to watch what we eat, good quality food can show how much a college or university cares about their students health and well-being for the rest of their life.
More on the Cost of College
Why does a university or college cost so much?
What the college admission scandal reveals – secrets colleges don’t want you to know
Is the university who even gives away lots of its endowment money to under-privileged kids caring for their long term health and well-being?
Just because in the past, the bad quality of the food served to college students was considered standard – or even though it’s a common joke – doesn’t mean that it was the best long term policy for the health of our population.
What’s wrong with colleges and universities have gourmet food?
Gladwell does acknowledge that high quality food is important for health, However, he misses the middle ground.
The school that has the gourmet food, not only uses it’s endowment earnings for gourmet food, every year it puts three quarters of its endowment earnings back into the fund! (If you only use endowment earnings, you can use the whole amount and not decrease the amount of your endowment, the account total will hold steady.)
So it’s endowment fund grows every year. This is even before new donations.
Clearly the school with gourmet food has a cushion that they could be using to help underprivileged students.
So the school’s problem isn’t that they serve gourmet food. It’s that they care more about getting rich than helping students! It cares more about getting rich than serving its country and community
That is more the crime.
The crime is not spending money on good food. The crime is the college getting richer and richer, while it charges still more and more.
Colleges and universities on both ends of the spectrum have it wrong. Ideally, they would both have good food AND support underprivileged students.
Resources for cost of college, is it worth it?
Why does a university or college cost so much?
Revisionist History Food Fight Episode – lots of links to good information here – from university budgets to, to financial aid budgets, to graduation rates – so you can see the numbers and judge results for yourself.