There is one thing that students and faculty at Columbia say that they hate more than than the state of Israel: inequality. The flip side is that there is one thing that students and faculty at Columbia love more than the Islamic Resistance Movement (“Hamas”), UNRWA, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad: equality. Columbia has accumulated $15 billion in profits (its endowment) and, therefore, is near the top of the top 1% of the richest colleges in the U.S. (list; there are about 4,000 colleges and universities total in the U.S).
One would think thank these inequality-haters would be delighted that the Trump administration had decided to redirect money from their rich school, thus freeing up funds to be distributed to comparatively poor schools. Yet instead we learn that folks at Columbia are upset. Example video: “Columbia University staff, students aren’t pleased with $400M cut in funds”.
From the student newspaper:
From the article:
“The AAUP is actively working with our members across the nation in preparation to resist these draconian policies that severely undermine the academic freedom and freedom of speech and expression that are fundamental to higher education,” the statement from [union leader Todd] Wolfson reads.
An elite academic is truly free only if he/she/ze/they is receiving an unconditional paycheck from working class taxpayers? In a now-deleted tweet, a Columbia grad student wrote that her F31 grant was worth only $100,000 per year in salary and tuition and that this was “pennies”, serenely unaware at the time that quite a few taxpayers would consider $100,000/year to be actual money. (the BLS says that median wage in Q4 2024 for a full-time worker was $1,185/week = $61,620/year)
(Same question about Californians. They say that they hate inequality and then they complain that California purportedly pays more in federal taxes than it receives in federal spending. (Much if not most of this is due, I think, to Californians paying into Social Security and Medicare while working in California and then receiving Social Security and Medicare benefits in retirement after moving to other states.) Californians want money extracted from taxpayers in Mississippi for their gold-plated high-speed rail system, for example, when that is completely inconsistent with their philosophy of promoting equality.)
Another question about Columbia… most of the academics I know who get federal money said that they would leave the U.S. in the event of a second Nakba (Trump victory). Nearly all should be living in Canada or Europe by now. Why are there enough of these folks still at Columbia to soak up so much federal money?
Separately, how is the noble enricher Mahmoud Khalil doing?
Loosely related, a couple of official White House tweets, Shalom Columbia and Shalom, Mahmoud:
Related:
- the Inequality sub-department within Sociology at Columbia (14 taxpayer-funded faculty getting paid far above the median wage in the U.S. so that they can write articles about how it is bad if people get paid far above the median wage)
- “Economic Inequality Cannot Be Explained by Individual Bad Choices” (Columbia Public Health, 2023)
- “How the Trump Administration’s Efforts to Redefine Human Rights Threaten Economic, Social, and Racial Justice” (Columbia Law, 2019): “threaten to harm communities historically marginalized and discriminated against, and to further entrench inequality”
- “More Inequality, More Instability…More Walls?” (Columbia Teachers College, 2017): “border walls create more problems than they solve”
The only positive thing with these colleges is that it is going to save some parental cash on children’s college applications (I presume that Jewish or other kid whose parents care about antisemitism, lefty and islamic radicalism, fake for status only education and institutional integrity will fail admission process anyway, due to not being liars). Otherwise it looks pretty grim.
Students notoriously do not understand research financials. F31 fellowships support only $28,224 of a predoctoral stipend. The top-line fellowship amount pays fringe costs on top of that, but only a very limited set of indirect costs (now that everyone knows what that means!). If the institution mandates a higher stipend (almost all do), NIH requires the difference to be paid from non-federal funds. The stipend limits are higher for postdoctoral fellows (F32s, stipends starting at $61k), and the F30s for MD/PhDs pay inflated tuition costs, but then these are competitive, skilled, and stressful temporary positions for trainees approaching their 30s.
I think you will find support for the protesters was much higher among the humanities than the STEM/health sciences faculty, staff, and students affected by these cuts. And this is NYC so there is a large population personally affected by both the 10/7 attacks.
Ref: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-24-104.html
sweet deal. I’ve paid a heavy price for my larnin’ and dese genieyousez am gettim paid form ite?
Fun fact: Columbia university has 37k students, 24k foreigners (presumably paying full tuition?).
Source: https://cis.org/Feere/Schools-Highest-Foreign-Student-Populations
It should be noted that of the more than 20,000 foreign students at Columbia University, the school reports that a total of 6,483 of them are engaged in Optional Practical Training (OPT). This is a controversial DHS-created program that allows foreign students to work in their field of study for one or three years beyond graduation. In other words, that population is not studying on campus, but is employed at some worksite (which may or may not be a campus lab, for example). Nevertheless, foreign students remain enrolled in the school while they are participating in OPT. Put differently, if looking solely at foreign students studying on Columbia’s campus, the percentage of the total student body that is made up of foreign students is approximately 38 percent (13,838 of 36,649).””
Columbia U. makes money just charging kids so they can “work” in the usa. Nice grift. I want a piece. Religio-Military Studies. DEUS VULT.
After yesterday’s headline about USC charging $100k/year for tuition & housing, it’s hard to believe anyone is taking higher education seriously anymore. Not aware of the current 529 plan savings rate among generation X. Maybe they’re using home equity.
Anecdotally it’s low within my social circle. As a GenXer, all 6 of my kids’ college expenses will be funded via 529. But most everyone I talk to is betting the farm on sport or academic scholarships to fund college. I guess we have parables like the squirrel and grasshopper for a reason..
“Columbia says that it hates inequality and also that it wants more federal money”
So does Israel. Those seem to be the magic words, don’t they?
Both Morningside Heights and Jerusalem shall feel the Crusader Steel. DEUS VULT!
“Both Morningside Heights and Jerusalem shall feel the Crusader Steel. DEUS VULT!”
Ridiculous.