[shrubble]

All bureaucrats do this sort of thing: shut down something innocent to serve as a rallying cry.

UCLA has $8 billion in endowments and the state universities in total have $30 billion in endowment funds. How many years could they fund Tao and his institute if they really wanted to?

[noelwelsh]

The govt has frozen about $584 million in grants to UCLA. The endowment won't last very long if they spent it to replace that. Furthermore, endowment money often has conditions that prevent it being spent freely + it is used for other things.