Glenn Beck: Big University
May 7, 2008 - 12:52 ET
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GLENN: Stu, I want you -- Stu is in there right now working on something I told him about, what, about 20 minutes ago. I asked you about the endowment fund at Harvard and Yale. And I said, put a billion dollars in there and see what it is in 10 years. At 23% --
STU: They didn't really lock in at 23%, right?
GLENN: I think it's Yale has been at 19 and Harvard has been at 23%. I mean, it's incredible. It's absolutely incredible. I mean, just do 15%. Just do 15%. You've done a cursory surgery on these endowments. Harvard doesn't have a billion dollars. Harvard has 35 or 37?
STU: 35.
GLENN: $35 billion.
STU: They are going to own the Earth.
GLENN: Yeah. You remember I told you the story -- here we are in Rockefeller Plaza. Remember I told the story about how when John, Sr. died, Rockefeller died, they went to John, Jr. and said, do you have any concept of how much money this is? And he said, well, yeah. And he said the number. And they said, we want to show you the projected compound interest. We want to show you what this money does. And they showed it to him and they said, by the time your children are your age, this wealth will crush you; you must start giving away this money. And that's why there's the Rockefeller funds everywhere because they had to give the money away. Because it was, at the time, the size of a small country. And now it would be the size of a large country.
$37 billion. You ask me why tuition is so high. You ask me why these liberal universities, "Oh, they are not paying their fair share." These liberal universities have endowments, Harvard, $35 billion in endowment. They are getting return on that investment of 23%. Figure that out, Stu. 23%, 10 years, $35 billion. How much is it?
STU: I mean, these numbers are ridiculous. $276 billion.
GLENN: Do it for 20 years. You have $35 billion, you get 23% return on investment, which is what they've been getting. How much is it in 20 years?
STU: $2.2 trillion.
GLENN: $2.2 trillion.
STU: These are like fake numbers, that you just make them up.
GLENN: In 20 years Harvard -- that's with no additional revenue being raised by these people.
STU: And also none taken out. But still how is -- like how can anyone be giving any money to send anyone to these schools? They should be happy.
GLENN: How much -- find out what Harvard -- Harvard tuition, everything, all expenses paid I think is $51,000 a year. They have $35 billion. Find out if they're -- how much is it per year if they're getting 23%? How much are they making without touching the principle? Do one year, let's do 23% of $35 billion. How much is just their interest?
STU: That would be $34 billion one year.
GLENN: 20% or whatever.
STU: This is not coming out correct. Hold on a second. I have to recalculate here, Glenn.
GLENN: Recalculating. He's making those little index cards. We have to feed them into our supercomputer, the one that sounds like, (making computer noises).
STU: It would go up to another $8 billion-ish.
GLENN: Take a billion dollars at $50,000 a year. How many students can you send to Harvard for $1 billion out of the $8 billion in interest?
STU: Starting to get me confused. Billion divided by $50,000? 20,000.
GLENN: You can signed 20,000 kids to school.
STU: For 1/8 of your interest growth a year. And that's Harvard.
GLENN: I make the case that Harvard isn't paying their fair share.
STU: You know what, they can have an endowment the size -- I don't care how big their endowment is. But stop asking us for money.
GLENN: Stop telling me that I haven't paid my fair share. Stop telling me that I, because I'm greedy, I'm not sharing my wealth enough to send people to school, when 1/8 of your interest, of your endowment, 1/8th of your yearly interest could send 20,000 kids to school.
STU: And that's at your ridiculous rate of $50,000 a year. How much does it actually cost?
GLENN: No, Harvard is about $50,000 a year. That's everything.
STU: No, what I'm saying is that's what they're charging people.
GLENN: I'm guessing that Harvard would get the family discount. How many students go to Harvard right now? Don't you love the computer? I only make him do this because he's like, what? How many students are enrolled in Harvard?
STU: Hold on one second. I'm clicking, I'm clicking, I'm clicking. Enrollment, enrollment.
GLENN: (Making computer noises.)
STU: Undergraduate, 6,715.
GLENN: 6,000 undergraduates. So they could do everybody plus two more thousand. That's unbelievable.
STU: For an 1/8.
GLENN: Unbelievable. Incredible. You want to talk about -- you don't talk to me -- Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, don't talk to me about how you couldn't afford your Harvard education. Harvard. You want to send more people to school? You got the money to do it. Don't talk to me about how big oil makes 8% in profit every year. 8% profit every year, when you've got $35 billion sitting there in an endowment from Harvard. They could make -- conservatively make $8 billion a year in interest, for nothing doing nothing, for creating nothing. This is called the rich get richer. I know they teach it at Harvard but they might want to look inward. They might want to -- when they're teaching how the rich get richer, how the powerful just keep their power. When they want to talk about the insidiousness of people just screwing people to the wall, these big organizations that just gouge your eyes out for something that is essential, like oil or education, and they gouge your eyes out and make it only available for the elite. Meanwhile they're just racking up the money.
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