2013-05-21T21:53:57-04:00 Dan Apfel http://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=dan-apfel Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Dan Apfel Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1339402 2012-03-15T15:30:23-04:00 2012-05-15T05:12:01-04:00

Dan Apfel http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-apfel/ Study of Endowments." The results of the annual survey show endowment returns and answer many other questions about how colleges are investing their money. University and college administrators have been waiting to see how their peers have fared over the last year and what kinds of investment decisions they are making. As a community, higher education needs to stop watching the race to the top of the return tables. Instead, it's time we focus on how endowments support the educational mission of schools and meet the needs of their community and society.

In most articles and discussions, the institutional returns take center stage. These tables, in articles like this one, in Inside Higher Ed, focus on the returns on the investments of the top endowments in the country. This article, in aiCIO, a magazine for Chief Investment Officers, has the headline, "Institutions Boast Investment Returns Averaging 19.8 perecent in Fiscal Year."

While there is a warning that the numbers are inclusive of donations and spending, these articles inevitably lead the reader to the following train of thought: Did you know that the University of Virginia's endowment rose 28.4 percent, while Cornell University's managers only returned 15.5 percent? What are those investment officers doing in Ithaca? Did they spend the whole summer sunning by the gorges rather than seeking out the best investments? And there clearly must be something wrong with schools like Harvard University, where the returns were only 15.1 percent. Have they been swimming by the banks of that River Charles, in that dirty water?

Apart from helping us determine how Chief Investment Officers at different schools spent their summers, these numbers do nothing to address how colleges are making those returns. Nor do these articles mention the fact that those numbers are a snapshot of a certain moment in time, rather than how a college's endowment is truly performing for the school, not to mention the social and environmental impacts of their investment decisions.

You will also notice when you read many of the endowment articles that the way the school uses the endowment is rarely mentioned. Other important questions go unreported as well, though they may be answered in the study. How much are they spending from the endowment and what is it used for for? Are the expectations of higher returns leading to greater risk-taking?

We need more articles to analyze whether growing endowments yield better educational results or are smart for the institutions and society. This article in the Chronicle of Higher Education, As Endowment Manager Turn to Private Equity, Questions Arise is a start in the right direction. It might not be easy, but it is important. While schools may use these numbers differently, from the outside, it often seems that the endowment returns competition is just a contest between growing empires.

Colleges are non-profit, tax-exempt, educational institutions that have an obligation to manage their social and environmental impacts. College endowments are simply not hedge funds where the only thing that matters is quarterly or annual returns. They are set up with a long-term purpose of supporting the colleges' educational and research mission. In order to have a meaningful conversation, it is time we try and look at them that way.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1001360 2011-10-09T14:56:16-04:00 2011-12-09T05:12:01-05:00

Dan Apfel http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-apfel/



On Wednesday, over ten thousand of people rallied in downtown Manhattan at the #OccupyWallStreet protests now in their third week. On campuses across the country, students walked out of class in solidarity with the occupiers.

It is not hard to tell that young people, including college students and recent graduates, are upset. We are upset that as we graduate we must struggle to find a job. We are angry with the bankers for getting richer after destroying the economy. And we are furious that money from those same bankers and other corporations is stopping our politicians from making the rich pay their fair share.

The colleges where many of us spend at least four years of our lives, and a huge sum of money, are an important actor in this system themselves. Unfortunately they continue to do little to make the changes that would support their students and future generations. Sometimes they are even working alongside the bankers and corporate interest.

Colleges in the U.S. are big business. They control major amounts of money including about $350 billion in endowments and over $100 billion in annual spending. It is time for colleges to begin thinking about the future of our society and including the fates of their graduates instead of just the bottom line.

Students around the country have tried, with some success, to influence higher education decision makers on a range of issues. They have encouraged policies that support a fairer and more sustainable economy through community and responsible investment. They have rallied around the rights of undocumented immigrants to an education. They have argued for the rights of campus workers and helped secure better conditions and pay for workers abroad making university apparel. Students have also fought for university action on environmental sustainability including a leadership role in fighting for legislation on climate change. Of course they have also fought tuition increases and lobbied for the right to education. These struggles have met with mixed success in part because universities are often run by the same corporate executives who are dodging the needs of the 99%.

But students are rightfully angry at what is going on in this country where they can spend $200,000 on college and still be unable to find a job. It's about time for institutions of higher education to rethink their role in our economy and our society. Colleges must become part of the solution. They can use their endowments to invest in their communities, their purchasing power to help create good living wage jobs and their lecture halls to develop solutions to these crises. It is time for colleges to start building a world where graduates do not feel they need to #OccupyWallStreet. If not, they may soon have to deal with solidarity walk-outs of #occupycolleges becoming #occupycampus takeovers.



Photo from flickr user david_shankbone.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.494188 2010-03-10T19:11:28-05:00 2011-05-25T15:45:22-04:00

Dan Apfel http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-apfel/
Big banks may take the money that is deposited and lend it to major corporations doing things like mountaintop removal coal mining and use it to make risky investments in derivatives, while at the same time charging high fees on credit cards and making predatory loans to low-income people.

Contrast that with money deposited in a strong local bank or credit union that can be lent out at fair rates to support local businesses and homeowners. These financial institutions are locally controlled, and in the case of credit unions, owned by their depositors, and both have a much stronger incentive to do a good job serving their customers and their community over the long term.

You know where you keep your money, but where do the institutions where you go to school, work and live keep their money? Most of them have accounts with one or more of the major banks. They may also promote their services to you--giving away free t-shirts as they sign up students for credit cards on campus-- as part of this deal.

While you and I have some buying power, universities and other major institutions with lots of money have more.

It's not just that colleges and universities are wealthy and can make an impact. It's also that they're tax-exempt nonprofit institutions with missions that often cite citizenship, virtue, responsibility, diversity, and community as their values. Our schools should uphold their missions in all of their operations, including finance.

Students around the country are starting to push for just that. Schools from Seattle University in Washington, to Macalester College in Minneapolis and Mount Holyoke College in Northampton, Massachusetts, have all moved a portion of their funds into community investments. Some, like Amherst College, have even brought local financial institutions to campus to serve students and faculty instead of a major bank. Other schools can do that too. Just imagine: if your local bank had ATMs on campus, you would probably be more likely to use them.

Students have every right to work with a bank or credit union that values them as community members, not just a number. While we may only be at our schools for four years we can continue to have a positive impact by bringing not only our personal finances, but also our institutions, to bear for the greater good.

For more information, visit endowmentethics.org.
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