Well, okay, it’s not so great for the Crimson Tower. But its toppling would be good for the nation and the greater Academy:
If Harvard were a serious business facing a liquidity crisis, it would have done something drastic by now: fired senior employees, closed departments, sold off real estate. But Harvard, like most other leading universities, is stubborn and inflexible. “None of these schools has the ability to cut expenses fast enough” is how a hedge-fund manager who counts Harvard among his investors explained the problem. Running the numbers for me, proving how impossible it is for a shrinking endowment to keep up with the university’s bloated, immovable costs, the hedge-fund manager concluded, “They are completely fucked.”
One particularly interesting fact about Harvard’s financial crsis is that the gentleman who created this situation is now duly employed… as the top economic advisor to the present administration.