Give Your Money to the University of the People

InsideHigherEd reports that universities made an average of 19.8 percent on their endowments in fiscal year 2011, with big hitters like Harvard ($32 billion in the bank) getting back near their pre-recession highs. Meanwhile, as I wrote a couple of months ago, the University of the People is working on a shoe-string budget to provide tuition-free online degree programs to desperately poor people around the world who have no other access to higher learning. Shai Reshef founded UoPeople with $3 million from his own pocket and other donations, which happens to be almost exactly the same amount of money the Harvard endowment earned every five hours, tax-free, last year. Now UoPeople needs more money to expand its volunteer-driven model to 10,000 people, which is where they think their economic model will be self-sustaining. Something to consider (donation link here) when reflecting on what you learned in college about morality and how it applies to philanthropic giving in higher education.