Ivy Students Forced to Give Back to Community Due to Recession
While Ivies like Harvard, Princeton, and Yale are bleeding endowment money in the market downturn, their graduating seniors are facing a decimated job market upon graduation. What to do? "Prompted by inequalities in American society—or sensing that the economic crisis limits their short-term career opportunities—young people are applying in force to such organizations as Teach for America," reports the Columbia Spectator. It's amazing how altruistic the unemployed can get! "With many top firms in jeopardy, Columbia students who in other years would have landed prestigious internships or six-figure jobs are simply out of options." And now they will have to resign themselves to two years of teaching poors, where they will annoy people ad nauseum about how much they "learned" after they finish the program.Meanwhile, Harvard's President Drew Faust told the AP,
"'We need to be prepared to absorb unprecedented endowment losses and plan for a period of greater financial restraint.' Faust's spokesman declined to say much Harvard's endowment has lost during the current economic turmoil."
But she did note in an e-mail that Harvard had to prepare for losses as much as thirty percent. The university has a $37 billion endowment. For now!