Scary to think about a model like West Virginia's coming to ISU.
I'd like more state funding to support our existing programs and provide for the arts, humanities, social sciences, etc. to exist at levels they did previously which could easily solve our budget woes and the risk of cutting programs that are important to the development of a full human being and a just society, like foreign language, humanities, etc. but in the absence of the political will to do this in Iowa and return to more state funding percentage-wise of higher ed, given the political right's constant cutting of support of public education in the State of Iowa from the K-12 to higher education, isn't it time some of these institutions start thinking about siphoning off some money from their endowments? Isn't this a suitable time to do this when facing cuts and dire straights for some departments? Same for a school like West Virginia.
I'm not well-versed in our endowment or how it works, but last I heard at an ISU Foundation fundraiser event we had something like $1.3 billion in ISU's endowment and the campaign is trying to get it to $2 billion if I recall correctly. If the money in here is not restricted (I recognize that is a big "IF" but I don't know the specifics), then shouldn't we start invading the principal a bit or at least use take some of the income each year to fund ISU generally and support these programs we're talking about cutting? Same with a school like West Virginia. If we're just taking income, wouldn't that be somewhere between $50 million and $100 million each year in funding toward programs that need it. Maybe that's overly simple, but I don't understand right now how all these schools are having problems, yet nobody (far as I can tell) is talking about invading these massive war chest endowments. Maybe they are and we just don't hear about it...
Anyway, would like to see more of these social science type programs that aren't making money stay around in healthy shape as they contribute to our society and our state in so many ways.