$111,618,000

$111,618,000: This is the additional money Harvard could spend if it increased payout from its $11.2 billion endowment by a mere 1 percent. We believe it should.

This year's payout--a paltry 2.98 percent--is well below the University's oftstated goal of spending between 4 and 5 percent of the endowment each year on general operating expenses. While it is understandable that Mass. Hall wants to proceed with some caution, this is the lowest payout since 1987. And this tightfistedness comes at a time of unprecedented percentage endowment growth--a healthy 25.8 percent last year. This year's payout of $332.3 million is actually less than last year's when inflation is accounted for. The rising tide of consumer optimism seems not to have raised any boats in Harvard Yard.

The University's explanation for this penny-pinching is that they must keep the flow of endowment funds steady from year to year. Administrators fear that a large influx of money in a good year could be followed by a drought during a bear market. They add that the majority of the endowment is restricted, reserved for certain uses within the University (salaries, buildings, etc.), and so to increase the payout of funds for, say, facility construction would be inefficient in a time when the University is not looking to build.

But there is a limit to how thin this rationale can stretch. After two record breaking years of endowment growth, the University can certainly reward itself for its good stewardship by opening the bank vaults just a little--enough to fund those needs that Harvard students have been clamoring about for years, such as smaller classes, better advising, remodeled athletic facilities. Just how much money is this mere 1 percent? Last year, the University collected $147.9 million in undergraduate tuition. $111.6 million could wipe out 75 percent of this.

True, every dollar spent this year means less money in the future, but Harvard is an institution ostensibly devoted to the acquisition of knowledge, not capital. Surely there must be a point when the Corporation, President Neil L. Rudenstine and their minions at Harvard Management Company can look down from their mountains of gold, see us in the distance and toss some spare change toward today's students.