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Monday, April 25, 2011

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions -- Not a Bakken Story

If you have nothing else to do right now, you should read the biography of John E. Anderson.

He was born in 1917, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the son of a barber.

He attended UCLA from 1936 to 1940. He went on to earn his MBA from Harvard University; he was awarded his MBA after WWII broke out.

He served in the US Navy during WWII. After the war, he continued his education, earning a JD degree from Loyola Law School. He was offered a full-time teaching position at the law school; he taught there for 25 years, morning and evening classes and still worked full-time at his law firm.

On April 1, 1956, Anderson founded Ace Beverage Co. with exclusive rights to distribute Budweiser products in Los Angeles, California.

In 2006 he was ranked 189th among the Forbes 400 with a net worth of $1.9 billion.

UCLA’s John E. Anderson Graduate School of Management is named after him following gifts of $17 million over the years.

Today, it was announced that Mr Anderson will be giving the UCLA School of Management an additional $25 million.
Since last fall, the Anderson school has been at the center of a debate over Dean Judy Olian's proposal to end the school's reliance on dwindling state funds and gradually shift it to financial self-sufficiency through higher tuition and more private donations. The plan, which critics called a step toward privatizing the public university system, is still being reviewed by UC hierarchy.
Decisions, decisions, decisions. 

A private university? Hmmm. Would that be a good idea? Would that set a bad precedent? Oh, that's right. Boston's Harvard University is private, and last time I looked, doing just fine. 


3 comments:

  1. Actually Harvard isn't doing as well as you'd imagine.

    They've been making massive cuts lately as well.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I would hope so ("making massive cuts") -- lots of waste in bloated bureaucracies.

    With regard to Harvard's endowment:

    Harvard University’s endowment earned an investment return of 11 percent for the year and was valued at $27.4 billion as of June 30, 2010. The return was 160 basis points above what would have been earned by the Harvard Management Company’s (HMC) benchmark policy portfolio.

    Source: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2010/09/harvard-endowment-posts-strong-positive-return-2/

    That was last June. Since then the market has jumped significantly, and I would assume Harvard's endowment jumped also.

    As noted, I said Harvard was "doing just fine." Everything is relative.

    http://www.allword-news.co.uk/2010/09/16/university-rankings-dominated-by-us-with-harvard-top/

    A google search failed to reveal anything of consequence with "massive cuts Harvard University.'

    ReplyDelete
  3. This got me to thinking (always dangerous, I know): Harvard's "massive cuts" comment above and the Massachusetts state debt.

    From an article dated December 30, 2009 (a little over one year ago): Massachusetts was the number 1 "debt-ridden" state. Debt per resident: $11,000 (Source: http://www.mainstreet.com/slideshow/moneyinvesting/credit/debt/most-debt-ridden-states-america).

    Total state debt then was $72 billion. And this is how they planned to deal with it: increase state gasoline tax.

    From the article:

    "As the Associated Press has reported, the gas tax, currently 23.5 cents, would increase by 50 cents under one proposal.

    "For the most debt-ridden state, Massachusetts seems to be putting all of its eggs in one basket with the gas tax."

    And that's why I love blogging: the things one learns.

    ReplyDelete

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