Opinion: Reasons Not to Give to Harvard U.

As the second-wealthiest nonprofit institution in the country, with an endowment of $35-billion, Harvard University and other super-rich schools do not need your donation, writes alumna Carroll Bogert, in an opinion piece for The New York Times.

Writing that the endowment is likely to reach $100-billion in a decade, Ms. Bogert says “at an annual growth rate of 13.3 percent — the average since inception, and regularly exceeded in recent years — Harvard can cover next year’s entire undergraduate financial-aid budget with what it earns in the market in eight-and-a-half days.”

Harvard, like a number of other universities, started aggressively investing 15 years ago, but it is still conservative about spending its money, Ms. Bogert writes.

In this reunion season, when the alumni office especially targets former students for donation drives, Ms. Bogert concludes, “I’d have to be drunk to fall for their pitch.”

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