This weekend the New York Times published an opinion piece from the president of Brown University. The gist is that the universities need to open this fall because of their importance to society and they should be given priority because of this.

“It won’t be easy, but there’s a path to get students back on track. Higher education will crumble without it.” I agree, 100%! This is going to be a difficult couple of years for higher education. We were already going down a bad path as the enrollment cliff looms. But let’s keep it in prospective.

Brown’s endowment is ~$4 billion. One university, $4 billion!! I honestly don’t know much about the finances of a big university like Brown. But let’s pick on my alma mater. Westminster College’s (PA) endowment is $122 million. So let’s think about their revenue. 1,200 students with a tuition (with room and board) of $40,000 (which is an over estimate) works out to ~$50M. It would be really tough for Westminster to survive two to three years of lock down, but it would likely happen. They could pay all their employees the full wage, with no students, and still be okay for a while. Obviously Brown’s situation is more complicated. But $4B is a lot of money.

There are hard working people out there that have no safety net, difficult health care situations, etc. The last thing we should be doing is giving priority to rich elite ivy league schools. This is one of those “fast ones” that the elite try to pull in a time crisis, e.g., “2008’s too big to fail”. Let them figure it for themselves, they have the money. We need to stop figuring out ways to help rich folks when the economy suffers and start helping the people that really need it.

Of course, everyone needs help at a time like this. We should all be looking out for our family, friends, and one another. I am not against Brown or wealthy folks getting aid from the government. I work at a liberal arts university, I understand their importance to society and especially for upward mobility. But when poor folks are dying in nursing homes, the government’s focus should be on helping them. Let the universities figure out their own situation; they got the resources.