> being "elite" is part of the brand.

Exactly. And what public policy needs to do is revoke the non-profit status of schools that fail to make any effort to expand despite having an abundance of resources and qualified candidates.

Harvard could easily accommodate 20,000 undergrads given the size and quality of its applicant pool. That fact that it doesn't spend a penny of its $30 billion endowment doing so reveals that its mission is brand management, not education. And that's perfectly fine. But it shouldn't enjoy a tax-advantaged status predicated on the make-believe that its a philanthropic organization.

> Harvard could easily accommodate 20,000 undergrads given the size and quality of its applicant pool.

Increasing the class size would be good.

But Danny Rubin isn't going to be able to teach screen writing to 120 kids instead of 12, even if he actually wanted to. RJ Tarrant can't expand his personal Classics section beyond 15.

And the undergraduate animal transplant surgery class (12-15 students)? How, pray tell, will that scale? If you wanted to 10x the size of the class... I don't know if there's a single place on Earth that conducts 10 transplants, human or large animal, in one building, at the same time.

Not everything can be scaled. Not even "not scalable" things can be scaled with money, even a lot of it.

A more interesting conversation is why nonetheless billionaires do a bad job at education, despite (not because of) all the money. I think this thinking is part of it. It also shows a lack of understanding of what makes Harvard special. It's not just "brand management."

Do you know how coveted any tenured faculty position is? Anywhere, let alone at Harvard?

Harvard could dectuple the number of faculty positions, and still turn away a dozen promising qualified academics for every position it fills.

I didn't go to Harvard, but I did attend a comparable fancy lad finishing school. The notion that there's any sort of magic compared to, say, Texas A&M doesn't hold up to scrutiny. The real difference is that the reputational capital of an Ivy League school. Which means that a bunch of impressive people will bend over backwards to become associated with the school.

Which in turn makes the institution itself prestigious. Which then attracts the next-generation of impressive people. Like a social status perpetual motion machine.

Exactly. The only path forward to preserve the essence of America is to grind the gears to a halt

You wouldn't complain if NCSU had this reputation. You're just saying this because you didn't get into those elite schools. "Bring them down". Move on.

The solution is simple: hire more faculty, build more and taller buildings. Build more dorms. They can afford it. And if their mission was education, they would do it.

Agreed. To do this correctly would take long term planning on the scale of decades most likely; growing the faculty from within and providing the necesarry resources to develop them. But it is possible and the elite universities should be moving this way.

For Harvard and the rest of the Ivy League, "growing the faculty from within" really means "actually granting non-world famous people tenue." The Ivys are notorious for not granting tenure to people who come up through the ranks.

You can’t just hire more top talent. “Elite” is “best”, not “more”.

The academic job market is so tight in most fields that random universities in the middle of nowhere get hundreds of applicants for a single tenure-track job. If you go back 100 years ago you would find that Harvard was a lot less selective (there were far fewer academics), but it was still elite.

Overall, society isn't putting enough money into research. Elite universities hiring more faculty would be a great thing, in my estimation.

You absolutely can hire more top talent.

The US also gives nonprofit status to organizations that do stuff like buy expensive paintings and build megachurches. There's no general requirement that the nonprofits need to be using their money in the highest-utility manner. If such a requirement existed, I don't think elite universities should be the first organizations to crack down on.

Where do you expect Harvard could house the additional 13K undergrads near campus? I live walking distance to Harvard campus and I can tell you that I can't imagine a good answer.

(Unstated above is that I believe that undergrad is fundamentally an in-person experience.)

Satellite campus?

Buy up existing hotels?

The George Washington University has purchased many hotels and condos and converted them to student housing, and that is downtown DC real estate.

Works well when you pay no property taxes.

Doesn't Harvard own a bunch of prime real estate? Tax free, even. How tall is the average building on that land?

> And that's perfectly fine.

Under capitalism. :)

Endowments really need to go. Put that towards paying for student's education instead of locking it up.

If endowments go, so do good professors. My wife was recruited by a couple institutions last year. One of our key concerns about one institution was the endowment. Tenure is not nearly as valuable at a institution that is not on strong financial footing.

Why are endowments so important for Professors? They're not seeing a dime from that anyway.

If a university has a strong endowment, it provides assurance that the operating budget will be buffered against economic downturns. If universities did away with endowments (and did not replace them with mind-boggling amounts of insurance), it would increase the chance that professors' jobs and/or salaries would be at risk. Unlike most jobs, academic positions can last for half a century, so it is reasonable to look far into the future when assessing the desirability of a particular position.

Theoretically, endowments are _supposed_ to be paying for students’ education.