Don't judge a college endowment by its wealth

In their Oct. 12 Op-Ed articles, Sen. Charles E. Grassley ("Using college endowments") and Amherst College President Anthony W. Marx ("Defending college endowments") share genuine concern about the affordability of higher education. They disagree about the role college and university endowments should play in lowering tuition costs for students. From our point of view as researchers of the higher education industry, neither makes a good case for or against using money in college endowments to ease students' tuition burden.

By Burton A.Weisbrod, Jeffrey P. Ballou and Evelyn D. Asch

October 20, 2008