Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania

Recently, the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania all testified to a committee of the House of Representatives on anti-semitism on college campuses. I will leave MIT out of the following and will comment on an important difference between the other two universities.

The difference: Harvard has people who are very good at portfolio management. U.Penn does not have their equal. Heck, books have been written about Harvard's endowment strategy. Without going into the details of those books, they seek to explain how Harvard continues to make a solid stream of income from the money it received from donors decades ago.

Now, one might think that this would allow them to drop what students and their families have to pay in tuition. (HAHAHA you silly person.) No

... what this does is allow Harvard's directors some freedom from the shifting whims of the donor class. They can respond to indignant alums when the latest scandal causes the alums to harumph "we're not going to donate this year!" with ... a shrug.

Penn can't do that. And that is why Liz Magill is no longer a University President and Claudine Gay remains at her post.

What can we saw about MIT? Well, a number of their graduates seem to be involved in executing on Harvard's portfolio strategy. I guess they didn't have to walk far to that job interview.

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