We thought you might enjoy a couple of recent news items related to our very own exemplar of Ivory Tower elites.
The first is this in the Portland paper. As you will see, our beloved College in the Pines has an endowment fund of more than $1 Billion, and appears to have earned in the neighborhood of $150 million on it in the fiscal year just passed. As we’ve written before, this seems to be at odds with the ‘occupy’ and anti-capitalism sensibilities so prevalent on the campus.
For a sense of scale, the town’s total property valuation is in the $1.4 billion range, so the college’s endowment is nearing equity with the total value of the town. Throw in the college’s real property value, and we think Bowdoin’s net worth is more than the entire town.
If you like, and we wish you would, you can reread this prior offering, which speaks of ‘fair share’ and other shibboleths of the “anti-capitalist oppressor” mind set found in the bastions of liberal, social justice driven institutions. We needn’t point out that such mantras are usually meant to apply to others, rather than those who hold them dear and preach them at every opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to a coercive utopia.
Second, we think you’ll find this item in the Bowdoin Orient equally informative.
It includes this passage:
For the 2013-2014 school year, the College devoted $32.5 million to financial aid, which 46.4 percent of the Class of 2017 received. The average financial aid grant is $36,600, and no aid packages included loans.
All we can say is it’s a good thing Bowdoin isn’t required to pay taxes, because if they did, how could they afford new ice rinks, and $25 million upgrades to their art museum, and other basics of educating the young and downtrodden?
We suspect that if they were required to pay their ‘fair share’ of town property taxes, based on asset value, they’d probably have a tax bill in the range of $10 million, which would make a pretty good dent in the $38 million or so the town will collect in taxes in the coming year. It might even reduce property taxes on the rest of us by 25% or so.
But you know what? Either way, this is a pipe dream. Because if the college did pay $10 million or so, town ruling elites would just see it as a windfall meant to be spent, just like everything else they can get their paws on.
Besides, as we’ve been told before, ‘without Bowdoin, Brunswick is nothing.’ And the college contributes to the town in so many other ways.
But maybe, just maybe, couldn’t the Bowdoin Development Corporation have been formed to give a $247,000 grant to Brunswick Taxi? In return, the recipient could provide free transportation from the campus to nearby hospitals for those who injure themselves cutting up fruit, and in assorted other catastrophes. Besides, we seem to recall that the demand from Bowdoin was one of the justifications for needing new vehicles.
This seems a small price to pay in return for how many acres on the base property, free gratis?
Come to think of it, why does Other Side have to pay property taxes? We contribute to the town in so many other ways. One of these days, we think we’ll do a side by side comparison of the pluses and minuses on a per capita basis, to see if we should be given the same consideration as the Ivory Tower.
No comments:
Post a Comment