Imagine You Are Aesop’s Ant

Ed Moore, president of the Independent Colleges & Universities of Florida (ICUF), writes: The ant in Aesop’s famous fable came to mind this week when I read of a proposal by two professors at public universities in Illinois who seek to nationalize the endowment created by the private institution, the University of Chicago.  The professors are employed by a system of grasshoppers in Illinois, a state teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. They perceive the endowment to be like the ant’s stash. Their claim is that the public colleges and universities are desperate for cash, (in large part due to the profligate spending by the state government over time, while neglecting shrinking resources and populations), and that the public institutions lack proper endowments and effective fundraising operations.