The unofficial online home for fans of the University of Cincinnati Bearcats. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

So I have a dumb question. The idea of an endowment is to provide long-term stability and a resovoir for future commitments and the prolonged success of a University, correct? And we also hear about how endowments help stabilize universities through economic fluctuations and thereby provide a relative stability in the short term. As far as I understand it (I don't, at all), endowments are somewhat of an abstract concept that ensures Universities utilize and maintain commitments from donors.

So my dumb question is--how much does UC's recent push for the billion-dollar endowment (now up to 1.5b) factor in to the current Covid predicament? BearcatMan has talked about how schools with larger endowments are, of course, better positioned to absorb the financial blows that will follow, but how, specifically, does the endowment that we have help?

I ask because there's growing concern amongst students about UC's handling of tuition and cost of attendance fees for this upcoming semester, as we talked about. I wouldn't expect UC to just drop tuition unilaterally and then cover the difference with their endowment (which would be tremendously expensive in it's own regard), but I'm confused as to what the point of an endowment is if not to help 1. Faculty maintain their salaries/positions and 2. Help students receive a fair and equitable education relative to costs.