There is also sadness today, a feeling of loss that you're leaving Harvard forever. Well, let me assure you that you never really leave Harvard. The Harvard Fundraising Committee will be on your ass until the day you die. Right now, a member of the Alumni Association is at the Mt. Auburn Cemetery, shaking down the corpse of Henry Adams. They heard he had a brass toe ring, and they aims to get it.
Imagine: These people just raised 2.5 billion dollars, and they only got through the B's in the alumni directory. Here's how it works. Your phone rings, usually after a big meal, when you're tired and most vulnerable. A voice asks you for money. Knowing they just raised 2.5 billion dollars you ask, "What do you need it for?" Then there's a long pause and the voice on the other end of the line says, "We don't need it, we just want it." It's chilling.

Harvard's endowment is now $34.9 billion, or close to $2 million for every student, including those at the graduate and professional schools. At the beginning of the fiscal year 2007, Harvard's endowment was $29.2 billion, and it spent somewhere around $1.1 billion in income from the endowment on financing programs during that fiscal year —about 4 percent of the beginning principal, and perhaps 3.5 percent of the average principal during the year. If Harvard had spent 5 percent of its endowment principal (as required of non-university foundations), and if it had devoted the added spending to reducing tuition, fees, and room and board charges, all such charges could have been eliminated for all students attending Harvard College.