More on American universities: their endowments are engines of inequality?

Posted by on

The very size of the endowments of top US universities should be a political issue, because these endowments make inequality worse and their sizes become ends in themselves.

Harvard has a tax-exempt endowment of $35 billion, Yale $26 billion. The endowments and fees paid to money managers are tax deductible. The per student annual taxpayer contribution to the typical community college in the US has been calculated at between $2,000 and $4,000 per student per year. For Harvard, it’s $48,000 per year. For Yale, it’s $69,000 per student per year. And for Princeton, it’s $105,000 per student per year of taxpayer subsidy.

So the taxpayer spends 50 times more subsidizing the students at Princeton than it does subsidizing the students of a typical community college.

Meanwhile, students at other colleges are carrying enormous debt loads through their 20s and even into their 30s because further education has become so expensive and there is no similar endowment to cushion the blow.

The situation is highlighted by Yale, which pays private equity firms $480 million a year (!) to handle its endowment and spends $170 million dollars on financial aid for students — while frequently raising tuition costs. As endowments grow the beneficiaries are not the students or the faculty; it is the fund managers. The emphasis seems to be on growing the fund, not advancing teaching and research and scientific enquiry.

The endowments should be subject to tax and that tax should be reserved to help poorer colleges and students. The management of those institutions, referred to on this blog on October 4th is another matter. American higher “education” is in a fine mess.

.

Coffee drinkers live longer

Posted by on

Good news for those who can’t face the day without their coffee: some while ago a major study found that people who drink between one and five cups a day are slightly less likely to die prematurely than those who never touch the stuff. Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health followed more than 200,000 doctors, nurses and other health professionals in the US for between 20 and 30 years. During that period, 19,500 of the women and 12,400 of the men died. Once the prevalence of smokers among coffee drinkers had been accounted for, drinking coffee was associated with a lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and suicide. Consuming one or two cups a day was linked with an 8% reduced risk of dying from any cause during the course of the study, rising to 12% among those who drank five cups. This remained the case whether their brew was caffeinated or decaffeinated. Although there’s no proof of a causal link, the researchers speculate that antioxidant compounds in coffee – lignans and chlorogenic acid – could have a beneficial effect.

However, other experts were quick to stress that the key to long life is not downing endless cups of coffee, but living an all-round healthy lifestyle.

Eugenics

Posted by on

I received a question from Owen, a regular contributor, as to my attitude towards eugenics, posted on this blog. I agree with the points made by Owen, and would add the following.

First, a Webster definition: “Eugenics is a “science” that tries to improve the human race by controlling which people become parents”.

There has historically been pressure to avoid the potential societal “burden” of the “wrong” sort of foetus, commonly a child born with Down’s Syndrome. In America the eugenicists, over the years, tried to highlight which sectors of society were suitable to survive for the future and which were not. They suggested that those deemed “unfit” for society should be excluded by restrictions on immigration and by enforced sterilisation. This, of course, implied favouring people of white ancestry.

I think Epicureans reject the idea of eugenics as being cruel, racist and elitist, taking no account of the humanity of the child and the love of the parents. Firstly, the mother should have the right to choose before the birth, and afterwards it is the business only of the family to decide on the trajectory of the child. Secondly, who is to make the god-like decision as to who should survive and who should not? Some politician trying to breed a race that will conform to his world view and the colour of his skin? Do we want to see such a choices being made? And thirdly, Epicureanism celebrates a diversity of intelligence and ability that makes this world so fascinating. It stands for tolerance and decent, civilised behaviour towards others, and is (or should be) non-judgmental. No master race! We despatched that idea in 1945.

Why are older women invisible?

Posted by on

Petula Dvorak, in the Washington Post of October 7th, bemoans the invisibility of older women. The older, wise woman is given as much credence as the older actress. Women of 50 or over are ignored. Economists at the University of California at Irvine, in cooperation with Tulane University, sent out 40,000 fake resumes, all of which reflected a breadth of age and experience. The resumes were sent all over the United States. The number of callbacks for older women were 47% less than for younger women, while men of all ages we treated more equally. Women at work “get talked over in meetings, interrupted and passed over for promotion, or criticised for their ambition”. Only 19% of the US Congress are women; 4% of Fortune 500 companies have female CEOs. Some people think that at least part of Hillary’s unpopularity is down to her gender and age – no one is querying the gender or age of her adversary, even if they are horrified by his manner and character.

The statistics ignore the fact that many people opt not to be promoted or thrust into senior jobs where they have to manage people rather than remain a technical specialist. I know whereof I speak because, much as I liked and admired my own employees in my younger days, far too much time had to be spent on “personnel matters” (there! that phrase tells you a lot!). Some wise old bird commented that being in business would have been absolutely fine and fun if it were not for the people – the staff and the customers. Handling and motivating them is, to say the least, a challenge at any time and in any place. Women, being more canny than men, confine their man management to the man in the house, which is one reason they live longer.

Intelligence derives from the mother, not from the father?

Posted by on

According to new research, children inherit their intelligence from their mother not their father. Genes for cleverness are carried on the X chromosome and may be deactivated if they come from the father. A mother’s genetics determines how clever her children are, and the father makes no difference.

A category of genes known as “conditioned genes” are thought to work only if they come from the mother in some cases and the father in other cases. Intelligence is believed to be among the conditioned genes that have to come from the mother. Laboratory studies using genetically modified mice found that those with an extra dose of maternal genes developed bigger heads and brains, but had little bodies. Those with an extra dose of paternal genes had small brains and larger bodies.

Researchers identified cells that contained only maternal or paternal genes in six different parts of the mouse brains which controlled different cognitive functions, from eating habits to memory. Cells with paternal genes accumulated in parts of the limbic system, which is involved in functions such as sex, food and aggression. But researchers did not find any paternal cells in the cerebral cortex, which is where the most advanced cognitive functions take place, such as reasoning, thought, language and planning. (The Independent)

If this is true and is confirmed by further research into actual people (rather than mice), then the lesson to be taken away is clear: men should procreate only with more-intelligent-than-usual women. This is a challenge because presumably intelligence is distributed in the female gender in something approaching a bell curve. The number of highly intelligent women is, of course, limited, and they may not be good-looking or have other attractive traits either. An Epicurean approach to this dilemma is to seek a loving, caring partner with whom you can have a mutually rewarding relationship – and, with a sigh – put up with the stupid children.