[lolinder]

> rip students off with sky-high tuition while sitting on huge endowments

As has been mentioned elsewhere, sitting on endowments is what you're supposed to do—you don't burn through the principal, you spend the interest. The point of an endowment is to provide a sustainable baseline income to keep the school going forever, it's not like an investment round where you're expected to use up the runway in an effort to reach profitability through other income streams.

> It's even worse when they're blowing money on athletic programs and new stadiums.

Depending on which sports you're talking about and which schools, this might actually be an example of an investment that is expected to yield a return. At a lot of schools the sports programs subsidize the academics, so having a nice and roomy football stadium is actually a pretty sound investment into income streams that benefit everyone, even students with no interest in football.

[DidYaWipe]

Valid points, but I didn't say deplete the endowments. And I am curious about the economics of sports programs and exactly where the proceeds go.