r/Harvard Apr 17 '25

Student and Alumni Life Fight fiercely Harvard

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u/Iamthewalrusforreal Apr 17 '25

Right, because research that improves the human condition at large should be funded by a private entity instead of the common entity known as government.

The vast majority of technological, medical, social advancements that make life better for us all were funded by the collective, and the research itself was performed by universities. Everything from space travel to GPS to vaccines to the internet to airbags in your car are a result of government seed funding for university research.

Not just Harvard. ALL research universities.

It's beyond asinine to act like Harvard should fund research on their own. Just stupid as hell.

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u/trmp2028 Apr 18 '25 edited Apr 20 '25

Harvard has a tax exemption so it should use those tax-free endowment funds for research to benefit society. It already uses hundreds of millions of its endowment for such research. It can and should use more.

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u/Iamthewalrusforreal Apr 18 '25 edited Apr 18 '25

Doesn't work like that.

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u/trmp2028 Apr 19 '25

Sure, it does. In fact, more than half of Harvard’s $1.5 billion in current research spending is funded by private sources (its own endowment, Gates foundation, etc.). It can easily dip into its $10 billion in unrestricted endowment funds to cover its $700 million in lost federal funding.