VARSITIES AT CROSSROADS

The bold protest at MIT speaks of the merits of a US campus, where students find ways to be engaged in events beyond the textbooks and learn to take a stand

- Jagdish Rattanani

The Ivy League Universities in the United States are among the richest institutions in the world. The daughter of Chinese President Xi Jinping studied at Harvard. The largest international donation (some INR 400 crore) to the Harvard Business School came from the Tata group. Along with other select US iversities, these institutions stand as icons of stature and achievement. Sometimes decried as islands of privilege, the Universities are nevertheless central to the story of America and its global leadership. All US universities together attract more Indian students than any other nonUS nationality to their hallowed portals.

The standing and money pow-er should, in normal circumstances, work as a shield that protects these institutions from rough weather. But in the complex turn that America has taken today, it is the very standing and money power that have contributed to putting the universities in the centre of a firestorm unleashed by the Trump administration. Protecting and growing the endowments, which the US institutions do rather well, has brought with it charges (whether fair or unfair) that the universities spend more on investment managers to grow their kitty rather than on growing a mission to deliver education for all. Have the US universities become prisoners of their endowments, making them more vulnerable than they should be to the turn of events?