[ionwake]

Rumour was an old lady donated posthumously alot of money she had saved up her whole life, to build a university at Estepona in Spain.

After she died they never built it. The town remains pretty much the same as it always was.

Last time I was there they had replaced the red marble promenade that was cracked on the beach with some sort of rubber playground cement, and for some reason that I can only put down to malice, built a large statue that resembles a rat about 8 feet tall and placed it at the intersection of the promenade with the town center, where there used to be old spanish men and youths playing on many free foosball tables

Bear in mind this fishing town is next to Marbella perhaps the richest destination in the mediterranean.

Its almost as if as a child I fell asleep and woke up in a nightmare, when I visited.

Fortunately they left what remains of the old town alone and its still a beautiful (in parts) tourist destination.

[jubilanti]

For the median worker in a small town in Spain, an entire life savings of scrimping and saving could still be only a fraction of what it would take to build one lecture hall. Might not even pay for a single year of salaries, operations, and expenses.

Put a million Euros into an endowment, and at 5% annual returns, that's 50,000 Euros, enough to hire maybe one person to run and teach everything. Even if it was 10 million Euros, that's a lot less than you think if you want to start even a small school and not run out of money in a few years.

[pezezin]

It depends on how rich the old lady was. In my hometown (Cáceres, also in Spain) an old rich lady left a whole palace to the city, which is now a museum, and a lot of money to start a cultural foundation.

[ionwake]

the point of the story was that it was given to the council on condition they built a university with it ( she wasn't a fishermans wife ).

as in she was rich bro

edit> are you trolling me?

[dpark]

You call this a rumor at the top of your comment. It’s all hearsay and you can’t really criticize people for assuming something different than you assume. There’s no factual information here to discuss.

[ionwake]

I didnt criticise anyone, and rumours are the shadows cast by coming events.

[radpanda]

That reminds me of the story of the university librarian who lived frugally and left his savings to the university, which went ahead and spent a million of those dollars on a silly football scoreboard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Morin_(librarian)

[no-name-here]

> Rumour was an old lady donated posthumously … to build a university

Was it only a rumor or did you find a reliable source? Presumably that type of thing would make at least the national news, especially if it’s been years - a university costs exponentially more than (empty?) parkland.

[ionwake]

its the equivalent of a literal fishermans tale.

Theres always some truth behind them. Im just saying what I heard on the grapevine. If people could stop busting my balls Id appreciate it.