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Thursday, June 04, 2015

Philanthropist Donates Money to Education...

... and is intensely criticized for it.

Say what? Comparing Harvard to Hermes is quite a stretch in my opinion.

5 comments:

Peter said...

Oh boy, just what we all need, more Harvard professors. I understand. Free choice, private property, invest in our youth, support the community, etc. etc., but it does have a whiff of the horsy set exchanging gold and glory to mutual applause. Still, it beats using the money to create a bunch of spoiled trust fund babies and it's sure a wiser choice than Ted Turner's one billion dollar donation to the UN.

Bret said...

Well, first I guess that I should note that both my wife and sister went to Harvard, so there's some infinitesimally small chance that I'm biased. :-)

But they do have good tuition assistance for the poor, they do have good programs, they do have good research, etc., so yeah, it's definitely way better than a bunch of spoiled trust fund babies, etc.

I hear from the Left that we need to invest more in education, someone does so, and gets crap. I hear that we need more investment in high quality STEM education, someone does so, and gets crap.

I think it was a very good donation and will be a very positive thing. Last I looked, it was his money, and giving someone crap for charitable donations to education is pretty ridiculous in my opinion.

Peter said...

I was just having a spot of fun. I'm actually a big admirer of the American commitment to charity, which far outpaces the rest of the world and tends to be disdained by the left, who are frustrated because they can't get their grubby hands on the money. It goes a long way to explaining your world leadership in state-of-the-art science, cutting-edged medical research and hospital care and the coolest college football facilities on the planet.

Harry Eagar said...

' Last I looked, it was his money, and giving someone crap for charitable donations to education is pretty ridiculous in my opinion.'

I'll agree but make an exception for that Ave Maria creep (and some others).

All education ain't equal.

Clovis said...

The twitter mentions it would be named "John Paulson School of Financial Engineering", but the NYT link actually calls it the "Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences".

I was glad to notice the difference, it is good he is donating it to real engineering, instead of hocus pocus financial pseudo-engineering. (IMHO, of course, he obviously can donate it to whatever he wants).