THIS PIECE MAKES AN EXCELLENT POINT: Are Harvard, Yale, and Stanford really public universities?

More than 800 colleges and universities across North America hold endowment assets of $516 billion. But the top 10 schools in terms of assets have about $180 billion of that total, one-fifth of all the holdings. Harvard University alone has a $35 billion endowment.

None of that money, nor the gains on it — which at the top schools were about 16 percent last year — are taxed. As non-profit entities, neither are the extensive land holdings of the nation’s colleges and universities.

Such benefits account for $41,000 in hidden taxpayer subsidies per student annually, on average, at the top 10 wealthiest private universities. That’s more than three times the direct appropriations public universities in the same states as those schools get. Princeton University, for example, receives $105,000 in taxpayer benefits for each of its students, compared to the $12,000 in appropriations that go to New Jersey’s public university, Rutgers.

I think we should eliminate the tax exemption for higher education. They’re all basically for-profit, it’s just a question of whether the profits go to shareholders, or administrators.