Last year, that endowment lost about 24percentt of its value, and charitable donations fell 25percentt.
One of Mr. Salomon's projects for the centenary is to expand that endowment, but financially, the series seems quite healthy, given its ticket prices.
(Surprise!) We discussed one way he could do it differently and he asked me, "If that is such a good idea, why doesn't Harvard do it that way?" I get this question a lot, and I understand why people ask it, given that endowment managers like David Swenson from Yale have tried to explain to individuals what they can learn from their own successes.
One almost has the feeling about Pompadour that some consortium of fairies decided, on a bet or whim, to create an ideal feminine specimen as their plaything, investing a human doll with their own attributes for the purpose of seeing how far that endowment would take her in the world, and what she would do with it.
This research said that, while the infant brain is, in part, the product of genes, that endowment is just the clay; after birth, it is "sculpted" by the child's experience, the amount of stimulation he receives, above all in the first three years of life.
Harvard has a huge endowment, far bigger than any other university's, and despite the constant and legitimate need to build up that endowment, it doles out its money wisely, to build new lecture halls and labs and hire new professors and give ever more generous financial aid.
"The problem now is that endowments are way down," she said.
In a chapter called "Monstruosities," he describes how he is dismayed that endowments, philanthropies and foundations "took the bait".
Still, last year's returns did not necessarily mean that endowments got any bigger, according to the survey, although there were gains at some of the wealthiest universities.
The influential CFA Institute suggested recently that endowments and foundations, which provide a substantial portion of hedge funds' assets, consider limiting or restricting investments in hedge funds that tie up capital.
Costikyan warns that endowment-hoarding colleges run the risk of congressional intervention.
