Dr. Richard Vedder
Dr. Richard Vedder, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Economics at Ohio University, was quoted in an NBC news column headlined As colleges confront COVID-19 and Black Lives Matter, endowments deserve scrutiny.
Private schools’ nonprofit status entitles them to receive extraordinary tax exemptions and benefits, which have helped facilitate the growth of their endowments. Richard Vedder, a retired Ohio University economics professor specializing in higher ed, estimated that Princeton receives six to eight times more federal aid per student annually than The College of New Jersey, a public university located a few miles away. The disparity might be even greater. Vedder also told me that, broadly speaking, “for every dollar more in aid that a student receives from the federal government, their tuition fees are likely to go up by about 50 cents to 55 cents… The majority of that dollar is really confiscated by the college indirectly in the form of higher fees.”
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