They do not use their endowment for public benefit, they use it for their own benefit, like other elite, private universities, and get tax exemptions for doing so: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22043995/
The scientific research they do is privatized; they hold the patents and license it off to others.
And if they can't afford Manhattan, they should have do what everyone else has to when in that situation: move somewhere less expensive. Eminent domain on their behalf is welfare for the rich.
They let in a small number of charity cases only because if they didn't, they would have already lost their tax exemption. What are we going to do about it, you ask? Recognize that these institutions primarily exit for their own benefit, for the benefit of a tiny economic elite, and not for the benefit of the greater public good (as they claim), and start taxing them accordingly. If I and everyone else here has to pay capital gains taxes, Columbia should have to "pay its fair share" as well.
As for eminent domain, it should never be used for private gain. If Columbia wants more property in Manhattan (an island with some of the most expensive property on the planet), they should have to pay whatever the market demands, not call upon the government to steal it from tax-paying businesses. And the "jobs and money" argument always gets trotted out to defend eminent domain abuse and is bogus; this expansion will benefit Midwestern children of privilege who want to study in New York far more than it will the people who live in Harlem and have lived in Harlem for generations.
I had never before felt bounded by social class, by economics, by mother fucking money.
I remember when it hit home: I was taking a graduate seminar on Afghan Politics. After class one day, I struck up conversation with a girl sitting next to me. She asked about my background. “I used to fight forest fires,” I explained, thinking I was so cool.
Her forehead crinkled. She stopped for a second, then responded: “Oh. I didn’t know they let people like that, you know, in here.”
Wonderful. And Columbia has a $6 billion endowment[1] on which they pay absolutely NO TAX. They also recently used eminent domain to seize a portion of Harlem.[2] Columbia, Harvard, and every other elitist, non-profit-for-tax-purposes-only private university should have its tax exempt status revoked.
The scientific research they do is privatized; they hold the patents and license it off to others.
And if they can't afford Manhattan, they should have do what everyone else has to when in that situation: move somewhere less expensive. Eminent domain on their behalf is welfare for the rich.