New York University, both the city’s largest school and its largest land-grabber, is finally ending its long tradition of awarding top administrators with lavish real estate. Just kidding—it’s actually doing the exact opposite.

In case you forgot for a second that being the spawn of someone rich and powerful affords you countless ways to circumvent your problems, here's another: NYU president John Sexton, center, turned two single dorms into a duplex during a housing shortage for his son, the New York Post reports.

NYU President John Sexton, who oversaw the school’s underfunded expansion into the United Arab Emirates and China (and even more of lower Manhattan), will step down in 2016. No word on whether he’ll have to relinquish his subsidized Fire Island beach house.

It's nice work if you can quit it. An article from yesterday's New York Times goes into the shameful and mysterious phenomenon that is New York University's bloated financial gifts to people who willingly resign from the school. There was, for instance, Jacob Lew, a former NYU executive vice president (and the new Treasury Secretary), who got almost $700,000 after leaving NYU and joining Citigroup in 2006. After Lew came Harold Koplewicz, the psychiatrist who quit the NYU Medical Center on his own accord and yet was still paid a $1.2 million lump sum in the 2009-10 fiscal year.

Former Today and Early Show host Bryant Gumbel turns 61 today. John Sexton, the president of New York University, is 67. Faded comic Andrew Dice Clay is turning 52. Jerry Lee Lewis is 74. Florida Senator Bill Nelson is turning 67. And Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi is celebrating his 73rd birthday today.

If it seems like Bryant Gumbel has been on TV forever, well, that's because he has. The former Today show fixture and Real Sports host on HBO is 60 years old today. Also celebrating: NYU's bearded president, John Sexton, is 66. Comedian Andrew Dice Clay is 51. Barbra Streisand's son, actor/director Jason Gould, is 42. Filmmaker Robert Benton is turning 76. Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida is 66. And Lech Walesa, who championed democratic reforms in Poland in the '80s and later served as the nation's president, is 65.

If it feels like every week brings news of yet another cash-strapped American company raising money from Abu Dhabi or Dubai or selling itself entirely to one of these emirates, it isn't your imagination. From real estate (the GM building) to finance (Citigroup), cash has been pouring in from the Middle East as of late. But the expressway of money goes in both directions. Today the Times covered many of the banks setting up shop in Dubai. But loads of other prominent New Yorkers are heading East to take advantage of the petro-dollar gravy train. Here's a look at the growing list of prominent restaurateurs, fashion designers, architects, and real estate developers setting up shop in one of the world's fastest-growing—and richest—regions.

The former dean of NYU Law, John Sexton is the 15th president of New York University, and one of the highest paid university leaders in the nation (he earned $849,121 from NYU in 2006).