创业与商业thenation.com
大学正在变成附带学校的十亿美元对冲基金
Universities Are Becoming Billion-Dollar Hedge Funds with Schools Attached
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导读
这篇文章批评美国顶尖大学坐拥数百亿美元捐赠基金，却越来越像对冲基金——把大量资源投入投资管理而非教学科研。作者质疑：既然捐赠基金规模如此庞大，为何还要向学生收取高额学费。
为什么经久不衰：它揭示了大学使命与资本运作之间的错位，这一结构性问题至今未解，学费与捐赠基金的反差仍值得追问。
HN 评论精选
耶鲁只需动用捐赠基金约2%的年收益就能免除全部学费，收费毫无道理
我不在乎大学是否雇对冲基金经理来管理捐赠基金，但坐拥数十亿美元捐赠基金的学校还收学费就很荒谬。耶鲁有约1.2万名学生和260亿美元捐赠基金，学费约每人4.5万美元，一年共5.4亿——这只占捐赠基金的2%，难道不能用来免学费吗？这些钱到底是干什么用的？
andr3w321查看英文原文
I don't really care if universities hire hedge managers to manage their endowment, but it's absurd that schools with multibillion dollar endowments still charge tuition. Yale has ~12,000 students and a $26 billion endowment. Tuition is ~$45,000 per student. $45,000 * 12,000 = $540 million. They can't spend 2%(540/26,000) of their endowment per year on free tuition? What is this money for? Of course this ignores financial aid so Yale's operating costs are much less than $500 mil/year. If you're going to donate to a university your money will go much further at a small college that actually needs your money and will actually spend it rather than hoarding it. TMQ had some great articles about this topic back in the day. http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/page/TMQWeekFour140930/robert-griffin-iii-blaine-gabbert-why-mega-trades-work-nfl-tuesday-morning-quarterback Halfway down.
捐款应给真正需要的小学校和社区学院，而非富得流油的常春藤
别给常春藤名校捐款。有十一位数的捐赠基金，你可以放心学校会永远存在。不如捐给州立大学或社区学院，帮助它们服务各种经济背景的学生。花钱的关键是边际效益——我们的捐款能让多少学生少背债入学、顺利毕业？
huac查看英文原文
A bit tangential, but don't donate to Ivy Leagues. I get that you might feel a sense of pride in having graduated from the school, but with a 11 digit endowment, you can rest assured that the school will be there for future students in perpetuity. Rather, give to state schools or community colleges or really, any other school. Help them serve students of all economic backgrounds, not just the elite. The most important consideration for spending money is generally its marginal benefit (obviously equal amounts are worth more to poorer institutions) but we could also think about this in terms of marginal students - how many more students can attend/graduate with less debt because of our donation?
外包给对冲基金反而让捐赠基金业绩更差、费用更高
对冲基金作为投资工具整体表现并不好，这实际上是把捐款转移给了对冲基金行业。当年哈佛曾自建投资团队，薪酬远低于私募行业，结果哈佛社区不满其高薪，这些人离职后哈佛转向外包给对冲基金，结果是业绩更差、费用更高。
inthewoods查看英文原文
I've been waiting for this article to surface on HN. The other problem here is that hedge funds, as an investment vehicle, really haven't done that well. So it is essentially a transfer of donations to the hedge fund industry while the endowment could have done better avoiding them altogether. Obviously there are some hedge funds that have done well - but on the whole they are expensive and do not add alpha. Back in the day, Harvard didn't outsource to hedge funds but instead had the portfolio managers in-house. These folks were paid a small fraction of what they would make in the private hedge fund industry, but my understanding is that the Harvard community was up in arms at what they were making - so they quit/got pushed out and then Harvard started outsourcing to hedge funds. The result was worse performance and higher fees. Of course, it's not all roses - Larry Summers famously made a terrible bet on interest rates that Harvard had to unwind at a large loss.
大学偏离了科研教育的本业，投资、地产等副业喧宾夺主
问题在于常春藤学校把精力花在管理巨额投资上，而不是科研和教育。钱不是大学擅长的，也不是它们的目的。而且对冲基金问题还不是唯一的问题——它们还经营体育队、住房、建筑和房地产，仿佛建校的初衷成了次要的事。
KKKKkkkk1查看英文原文
The problem is that an Ivy League school is paying the expenses of managing investments worth a gazillion dollars instead of focusing on research and education. Money management is not what the universities are good at, and it's not what they are for. But in fact, the "hedge fund problem" is not the only problem American universities have - they are also running sports teams, housing, construction and real estate operations and whatnot. It's as if the purpose for which they were created has become an afterthought.
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