Recent events alone do not fully represent the affairs of the past 2+ decades. Community, state, ivy, all levels were gorging themselves on federal funding and endowments. I have no comment on the current admin, but blatantly inefficient use of funds is an understatement.
What does "gorging themselves on endowments" even mean? If they did that, they wouldn't be very endowed in quick order.
Charitably, they may mean "the proceeds from their endowments" (or maybe "engorging their endowments", if that's even a proper use of the word), but I think that's a weak point. Proportionally very, very few institutions have significant endowments.
You're both wrong. I'm saying they're engorged AND well endowed. Many consider this a strong point.
Oh, yeah. Some certainly are. I think they're the subset towards whom Summers is addressing his argument, in the article under discussion.