Talk:Lists of institutions of higher education by endowment size

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Comment

Is it really necessary to have the amounts in Standard Form? We're talking about financial numbers here. There's no need to use something like that- it obscures the meaning for the majority of readers.

The numbers in question just aren't large enough to warrant Standard Form. -AirRaven 19:05, 27 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. Avram (talk) 18:42, 31 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Basis for this article (list of lists)

See Talk:List of colleges and universities in the United States by endowment/Archive 1 § International Universities.

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Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 07:08, 16 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What readers really want, maybe?

Endowments are nice. On a good year recently, maybe 3--5% interest goes to the institution. Current giving is probably comparable in size. Tuition can be significant. But, but, but... the big effect is state allocation through direct support, tuition matching programs, and capitol programs. My guess is that readers maybe obsessed by the endowment, which is easily listed, but they really want to see the entire financial support, which can be quite different from endowment rankings. --Smokefoot (talk) 00:28, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Endowment per student

Endowment per student data are misleading as they are easy to calculate. At first glance, such data suggest something about how much an institution supports students, but that conclusion is false and deceptive. Students are supported by all sorts of funds, not just endowment. State institutions have access to financial tools that relieve students of some tuition. But most importantly, what about the tuition itself? I mean, isn't it nice that Princeton has >$1M per student? But the tuition & fees are what, $100k/y? So the Endowment per student data makes Princeton look saintly, but the facts are much more complicated.

Many highly endowed institutions (Harvard, Duke, Hopkins) have large medical operations (read: super expensive), which presumably are massively endowed. That money is not available to support students. Getting information on private institutions is impossible, whereas the budgets of state schools are more open.

Yet another factor: large R1 institutions have gigantic research programs supported by NSF, DOD, NIH. Most of those funds go towards students and related coworkers who conduct the research. Why isnt that factor considered?

Comments and criticisms welcome. --Smokefoot (talk) 19:20, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No metric is ever going to be perfect; I agree that e.g. having a large hospital is the sort of thing that could skew it (it's worth noting it also skews the total endowment figure). But Wikipedia doesn't require metrics to be perfect to be included, just useful and encyclopedically pertinent. That seems to be the case here, given sources talking about university endowments regularly discuss the endowment per student. Including the metric does not make any direct implication that the funds are being used to support students; a reader might infer that, on average, these schools spend more on their students than much poorer ones, but that inference would be correct — they do.

I'm going to restore the status quo in lieu of consensus to change it, but if you'd like to help contextualize the data for readers better, I'd certainly invite you to expand the introduction with material (sourced for verifiability, of course) that helps explain what a university endowment is and what it does or doesn't signify.

Cheers, Sdkb ^talk 20:14, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Sdkb: "a reader might infer that, on average, these schools spend more on their students than much poorer ones, but that inference would be correct — they do" Rebuttals: (i) The issue is not much poorer ones, (extremes dont enter into our debate) and (ii) How on earth do you know that? (iii) And then the threat: "invite you to expand the introduction with material (sourced for verifiability, of course)" NACUBO aggregates the endowment numbers, there are not aggregations of the tuition, fed grants, state support. So since my data are not aggregated, then I lose?

Why not list endowment dollars per square foot of campus space? Those data would be verifiable but it would not imply that Princeton and Duke are saintly. Just that they have a lot of endowment cash.

What about the tuition charged by privates? Why is that not listed?

State universities routinely get $x00M/y injection, why is that not considered? Equivalent to many, many billions of endowment. But those data are not considered.

Overall, what worries me is that Wikipedia is deceiving its readership owing to the biases of editors combined easy availability of NACUBO data.

--Smokefoot (talk) 20:31, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Our obligation is to present information of encyclopedic pertinence to readers; if a reader misinterprets that information to imply that Princeton and Duke are saintly, that's on them. (Also note that this is the global article, not the U.S. one; NACUBO is U.S.-only.) Endowment per square foot is not listed because it's not a metric that sources use like they do endowment per student. Tuition is not listed because this is the article about endowments, not tuition (which, of course, is itself a potentially misleading metric, given large scholarships etc.). Again, listing that an institution has a large endowment per student directly implies nothing except that it has a large endowment per student. It's a decent proxy for an institution's wealth that controls for its size — imperfect, of course, but there's no simple metric that's any better, and omitting it would be a loss for readers. Sdkb ^talk 20:41, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I realize that this article and Talk are for global institutions most of which are not covered by NACUBO but I didnt want to run duplicate discussions.

Readers, I am guessing, prefer to browse tables and graphics, not read paragraphs. So any mention of nuance (more than a nuance, really, an inversion of the data almost) is immediately disadvantaged, which is irksome. Then there is the situation that data that would support a more nuanced (or my) perspective would not be admissible because tuition, state support, fed grants are off-topic. --Smokefoot (talk) 21:32, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome to start a new article or edit one in which that information would be appropriate - supported by reliable sources, of course. ElKevbo (talk) 21:41, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@ElKevbo and Sdkb: Re "no, they (privates) don't (have higher tuition [hint: they do]- they may have high sticker prices [nice try] but with discounting and financial aid, usually very generous financial aid especially for low income families, they don't all charge high tuitions - in any case, the claim is unsourced" Oh, you want to have your cake (they have bigger endowments/student) AND eat it too (those saintly institutions, they use their endowments for lowering their tuition) Precious. Would you like another gulp of Kool Aid? They couldn't possibly be using large endowment to pay faculty salaries, renovations, research, .... because, because, because... oh yeah: Tuition is not tuition when it suits ElKevbo. Dont worry about reliable sources for that insight.

Sarcasm aside, we need think about the message we are selling to the readers. It is easy to glide along, relying on the selective application of editing guidelines. At least IMHO. --Smokefoot (talk) 22:07, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome to state your opinion and advocate for change but Personal attacks are not permitted and you're really close to the line. ElKevbo (talk) 22:42, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The delicious part of the discussion is the view, used to justify reverting my small edit, that private institutions dont usually have higher tuition. Of course not. The double icing on this sweet delicacy are the introduction of the phenomenon called "sticker price" and insights, undisclosed, as to how these private institutions allocate their endowment. Let's not worry about reliable sources, shall we? --Smokefoot (talk) 23:07, 3 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]