Forced quintuples. A $145 “Relaxation and Meditation” class. Clara Dickson Hall. And to say nothing of engaging in a scheme to con low-income students by price-fixing financial aid. It’s hard to remember that Cornell has a rapidly growing endowment worth $10.7 billion (reporting an $860 million gain in the 2024 fiscal year). So when students are complaining about Cornell skimping on road salt, it might be time to spend some of that endowment money on us.
Last month, Congressman Mike Lawler (R-NY) introduced the Endowment Accountability Act to the House of Representatives to encourage just that. This bill has two goals. First, it will lower the per-student endowment tax threshold from $500,000 to $200,000. Right now, universities like Cornell (with a per-student endowment of just under $400,000) are exempt from any tax on endowment income. Even if Cornell wasn’t exempt, it would only pay a 1.4% tax on its endowment income. Lawler’s bill fixes this, increasing the endowment income tax from 1.4% to 10%. However, if universities instead choose to spend endowment income (thereby turning it into an expense), it wouldn’t go to Uncle Sam.
Perhaps Cornell could begin with funding more of its own research: the $860 million earned by Cornell’s endowment last fiscal year could have covered the $825 million in federal contracts and grants received during the same time. This might be an improvement to the current arrangement of raking in federal tax dollars and then crying foul when that federal government wants some say in how it’s used. Of course, this is no endorsement of cuts to federal research spending—a short-sighted decision. But surely there are fairer uses of our hard-earned tax dollars than subsidizing universities with multi-billion dollar endowments.
First of all, stop skimping on financial aid. The American Dream works when opportunity-givers—employers, venture capitalists, and especially universities—take a chance on bright people, no matter how rich their parents are. Jensen Huang, billionaire of Nvidia fame, once worked the graveyard shift at Denny’s to make ends meet. Brilliant, cash-strapped people like Huang are what Cornell misses out on when we forget that whole “any person, any study” motto. Imagine if Cornell Law took a chance on Joe Biden. He actually got in. But because Cornell Law cheaped out on financial aid, Biden went to ‘Cuse instead.
Biden isn’t exactly an intellectual heavyweight (he ended up graduating Syracuse Law with a rather unpresidential 2.69 GPA)—so maybe we can’t blame Cornell for that one. But who else is Cornell missing out on by colluding with other elite universities to keep financial aid low? Imagine if Cornell really was the “any person, any study” school, where we took a chance on bright, promising people who can’t afford the $100,000 price tag. We could probably get closer to Ezra’s slogan by spending a bit of our endowment money.
So unless the “equity” in Cornell’s DEI policies just refers to financial equity, it’s time to withdraw its legions of lobbyists from Washington (who are probably preparing to battle Lawler’s bill) and start investing in students—or pay up your fair share. Settle that financial aid lawsuit. Fund your research. And maybe—just maybe—put some damn salt on the ground during winter: it’s really not that expensive.
And finally, Mike Lawler, thank you. Keep up the good work.
