Harvard asks donors for $6.5 billion

[cali]

- Harvard, the richest university in the United States, announced on Saturday it will seek to raise some $6.5 billion in donations to fund new academic initiatives and bolster its financial aid program.


<snip>

Harvard already has an investment portfolio worth around $30.7 billion, roughly the size of the annual gross domestic product of the Baltic nation of Latvia.

That endowment shrank 0.05 percent in the fiscal year ended in 2012, after double-digit gains the previous year, according to the most recent figures from the university.

A Harvard spokeswoman did not immediately comment on why the university required the donation drive in order to fund the new initiatives.

<snip>

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/21/us-harvard-donations-idUSBRE98K0C620130921

[OmahaBlueDog]

1. Some suggestions..

1. Hold one helluva bake sale
2. Have the students sell cards offering discounts to local businesses and restaurants
3. Have the students sell magazine subscriptions
4. 50/50 raffle
5. Invite all of Boston to a giant pancake breakfast

[DJ13]

2. 6.

Pay for it out of your already swollen funds ya cheap bastards!

[frazzled]

3. If they would draw down on their current endowment at the rate of 5%

annually, they could fund EVERY student at Harvard. But they don't want to do that. They just want to expand the billions further, skimming a fraction of that off the top.

[winstars]

4. If not for Larry Summers, they would only need like 5 billion, he lost/blew over a billion... nt