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581 points gnabgib | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.214s | source
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araes ◴[] No.42196753[source]
Started looking and found out there's some much worse, and far more obvious cases that need to implement these reforms. [1]

UPenn is THE most obvious. Sitting on a $20,000,000,000 endowment fund that went up +170% over 10 years while Philadelphia rots with drug use, poverty, and gun violence.

BTW, amazing site to be horrified by gun violence (and vaguely fascinated). Look upon the awfulness of Philadelphia. [2] Sitting in their safe little haven while East and South is wounding murder land with overlapping murder / wounding statistics. (12k from 2014-2023, 190/100000 urban) [3] Northwestern and the violence everywhere South in Chi-town is maybe a personal second choice. ($13,700,000,000, +74%, 26.9k, 280/100000 urban) [4][5]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universit...

[2] (Guns, Philadelphia) https://www.thetrace.org/2023/02/gun-violence-map-america-sh...

[3] (Location, UPenn) https://www.google.com/maps/place/University+of+Pennsylvania...

[4] (Guns, Chicago) https://www.thetrace.org/2023/02/gun-violence-map-america-sh...

[5] (Location, Northwestern) https://www.google.com/maps/place/Northwestern+University/@4...

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ciupicri ◴[] No.42197243[source]
So if a university has money, learning there should be free?

If you don't have guns, you won't have gun violence, but I guess the second amendment won't be changed any time soon.

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tdeck ◴[] No.42197348[source]
> So if a university has money, learning there should be free?

Not an unreasonable proposition. The purpose of the university is ostensibly to provide an education, not to continue hoarding more and more money.

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JumpCrisscross ◴[] No.42197546[source]
> purpose of the university is ostensibly to provide an education

One of the purposes. They’re also centres for learning and research and repositories of knowledge.

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bigstrat2003 ◴[] No.42198955[source]
I disagree. I think teaching is the sole purpose of a university. Research is ancillary to that, and if an organization only did research but didn't teach I would not say they get to call themselves a university any more.
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1. JumpCrisscross ◴[] No.42199187[source]
> I think teaching is the sole purpose of a university

Cool. This isn't how the word works in practice. More importantly, it isn't how the trustees of the people who gave those universities the money asked for it to be used. (Nor the government or the granting agencies.)

> if an organization only did research but didn't teach I would not say they get to call themselves a university any more

Again, cool. This isn't true in reality. Research universities famously put research first, which is why they can attract top faculty.