Since Andrew Carnegie penned “The Gospel of Wealth” in 1889, his pragmatism has guided American philanthropy. He never squandered his giving on inefficient charities, nor did he hoard his wealth for the mere posthumous honor—the goal was results. Carnegie wanted to empower people to better themselves and society, stimulating a multiplier effect and ultimately stretching his dollars as far they could go. This week, when billionaire and alum Kenneth C. Griffin gave Harvard a whopping $150 million—the largest donation in Harvard history—he utterly ignored Carnegie’s tradition, helping the rich become richer as truly needy become needier. It’s something that benefits Harvard students, and we might as well embrace it, but we shouldn’t self-righteously kid ourselves into thinking we’re the most important ones who most desperately needed (or worse, deserved) money, because not even our donors think that. World-class business minds like Kenneth Griffin’s don’t give money because they believe Harvard’s giant, opaque endowment advances wonderful ends. Only the naïve and righteous can pretend that this latest donation is anything but a very expensive pair of future acceptance letters for Griffin’s two children.
There is, perhaps, a framework wherein one could ignore the entirety of this consequentialist logic. Perhaps giving $150 million is inherently great, no matter the outcome. Perhaps we should applaud Griffin’s morality (if not his intellect) as other philanthropists fill the other monetary voids throughout the world. The Kantians can have their say here, but if you think results matter, then Griffin’s actions defy reality.
Let’s look at what Griffin’s $150 million will change at Harvard. Griffin earmarked about $125 million to financial aid and roughly $10 million for a Harvard Business School (HBS) professorship endowment. The latter, at best, seems like Griffin’s way to get friends into HBS, which clearly does not have any financial issues at the moment. Likewise, the former earmark throws money at a non-problem. Only nine higher-learning institutions in the world are both need-blind and fully meet demonstrated need, and Harvard College is one of them.
On the other hand, the money could fund much needier schools: a number of cash-strapped colleges offer wonderful educations but little aid, and many—including the likes of Howard University and the nearby Tufts University—are actively looking to boost their financial aid endowments. Granted, Harvard probably churns out more innovative students than most colleges, but this does not mean that we should feel entitled to disproportionate opportunity. Rather, it means that other schools deserve more funding than they currently receive; our academic excellence largely results from having by far the largest endowment in the world (nearly twice the second largest, and five times the sixth largest). The marginal social return of saturating Harvard’s funding, undoubtedly, is less than aiding underfunded colleges elsewhere; any Harvard student claiming otherwise reveals little more than their own partisan blindness.
Furthermore, if we expand the scope of comparison, far better charities exist throughout the world. Funding female education in the third world has significantly higher social return than any American education does, as do malaria nets and vaccinations, etc. An entire industry, the “effective altruism movement,” researches and reviews the societal impact of donations in hopes of calculating social return, and their methods generously account for long-term effects of education funding and the like. While there are some incredibly worthwhile charities according to GiveWell, the most prominent charity-review group, well-endowed higher-education institutions certainly do not make the expansive list of worthwhile donation areas.
Anyone who says that rich philanthropists like Kenneth Griffin should give money to Harvard rejects the very foundations of either consequentialist morality or quantitative reality. Given Griffin’s past history of philanthropy, most of it pushing his “Reagan Republican principles,” it makes little sense that he’d want to promote a leftist, federally funded institution to improve the world, and above all, he’s clearly a smart dude who’s well aware that this isn’t where his dollar will go furthest. Like all our other major donors, Griffin probably thought more about his two children’s upcoming Harvard applications than greater social impact. Harvard just sold a couple of acceptance letters at $75 million apiece, and though the university has a responsibility to do so—the money helps students like myself attend for a small fraction of the total cost—pretending it didn’t happen is asinine. Harvard always has been, and sadly might always be, a school catered towards the rich. No one can pretend this “financial aid donation” does anything but perpetuate more of the same.
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