As we break into the Fall semester and the beginning of our new school year, we are continuing on our long-term investments in our education, careers and futures.
Although a student’s time and effort is his or her most valuable contribution to a university, financial obligations are quite significant as well — as those who pay bills undoubtedly know.
What is lost on, or more accurately, hidden from many, is that the financial contributions made to an institution with the size and complexity of our University stretch beyond the services and facilities provided by the organization; students invest in an ever-evolving financial institution.
The University has centralized wealth and resources, and has the power to use these resources in various ways. Some of this wealth and power is used to support UH’s direct interests, and some of it goes to our community and the rest of the world.
A university’s endowment is a collection of investments owned by a university and managed by an administrative committee. There are some things that really stand out in UH’s endowment.
UH has a major stake in some of the biggest tax evaders of the 2008 recession era, with more than a million dollars invested in Apple, who has paid just $8.2 billion in taxes while profiting $48 billion since December 2009.
UH also has over $14.2 million invested in Altria, Phillip Morris, Boeing, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, Newscorp, Oracle, Pfizer and Time Warner. These companies collectively made $96.7 billion in profits last year, but through the use of overseas tax shelters, lobbying for tax breaks, and other tactics these companies paid very little or no taxes in 2010.
The endowment also shows that the University owns $1.5 million in shares in American Electric, Boeing, FedEx, Honeywell and Wells Fargo. These are all profitable companies, but they also all hold negative tax rates and have been getting tax refunds from the federal government since 2008.
UH has almost $1 million invested in GE, who recieved a $3.2 billion dollar tax refund last year after making a profit of $14.2 billion.
And finally, the University has almost $11.4 million invested in 23 of the 26 banks who received federal bailout money in 2008. These are the banks who thought that high risk loan practices that subsequently buried poor and working class people under insurmountable debt was a good idea. These banks helped bring about the current recession that has made it so hard for college graduates to find employment. Many of these banks, like JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley and several others are also tax dodgers.
When our national deficit is spurring austerity measures locally and around the country, it’s time for UH to stop investing in rich corporations who lobby and cheat the government out of billions every year.
While it’s important for UH to be solvent, if the University is making money off of the destruction of lives and communities by investing in companies who profit at the expense of taxpayer and young people trying to find jobs, the University is investing against the interests of its population.
Brendan Laws is a sociology senior and may be reached at [email protected].
This is a great Op-Ed. However, there is a little I am left wondering. Is the call for ethical/responsible investing part of a larger campaign on university campuses across the country? Have any other universities altered their investments in light of the unethical behavior of so many of these corporations listed above? Divestment by American universities helped bring about the the end of apartheid in South Africa. Perhaps it can bring about the end of tax dodging by US corporations today.
It's great to see the Daily Cougar covering issues like this, I agree.
People are starting to work on this on campus. In fact there's a meeting coming up on September 9th that's looking at this very issue. Check out: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=26705431332….
And for more work being done on the issue check out US Uncut, who does work on boycotting tax evaders: http://usuncut.org/ , and the Responsible Endowments Coalition, who does work on making college endowments more ethically invested: http://www.endowmentethics.org/
interesting @ south africa. i will have to google this
It's time that we students take responsibility for our money and demand accountability from administrators and the UH endowment fund. We have the power through finance to rectify the antisocial behavior of these corporations and the current public university system if we only collectively take an interest in the ethical investment of our own money. Please check out the PACTE meeting mentioned by "Coogie" on September 9th at 6:00 PM in the Mediterranean Room of the UC. See you there!
very good article!!!
good to see someone is actually researching things that are relevant to the school.
it's scary how tied into business our educational institutions are. maybe that's why they carry themselves so much like businesses – focusing primarily on growth, which is mainly driven by marketing/propaganda, instead of trying to provide a truly superior product.
You would really have to get other universities involved to make a dent in this. Just looking at the numbers cited in the above article UH's chunk of these corporations is really a drop in the bucket.
Having said that, congrats to UH for picking some winners. Maybe if we had access to the state oil revenues that UT/A&M take for granted we wouldn't have to get our hands so dirty.
It should be noted Altria produces Marlboro.
Also, I wonder if the university's funds are still tied to companies accused of colluding with human-rights abuses. For example, look how the endowment fund was indirectly related to ethnic cleansing in Darfur: https://thedailycougar.com/2008/04/24/students-dec…
nice!! i wish there were more stories like this in the paper. maybe because the paper values quantity over quality. i know for a fact they don't appreciate in depth analysis of important subjects that effect students.
Interesting! Can I get the sources for those facts as you call them?
If this is to address the article, then they were posted online on a now defunct UH CRI student website. They acquired them by filing a FOIA to the university's General Counsel for their endowment information.
Here is an FOI letter generator that you can use to help your investigations: http://www.splc.org/legalassistance/foiletter.asp
Remember all meeting minutes, salaries, grant information, investments and endowments and university-sent e-mails are in the public domain.
If this is to address the article, then they were posted online on a now defunct UH CRI student website. They acquired them by filing a FOIA to the university's General Counsel for their endowment information.
Here is an FOI letter generator that you can use to help your investigations: http://www.splc.org/legalassistance/foiletter.asp
Remember all meeting minutes, salaries, grant information, investments and endowments and university-sent e-mails are in the public domain.
It was posted to address Brian who knows says this about the Cougar: "I know for a fact they don't appreciate in depth analysis of important subjects that effect students."
I want to know where he gets his information.
It should be noted Altria produces Marlboro.
Also, I wonder if the university's funds are still tied to companies accused of colluding with human-rights abuses. For example, look how the endowment fund was indirectly related to ethnic cleansing in Darfur: https://thedailycougar.com/2008/04/24/students-dec…
As for all articles, if you want sources, I'm pretty sure you just have to email the Daily Cougar.
"These are the banks who thought that high risk loan practices that subsequently buried poor and working class people under insurmountable debt was a good idea."
Well thats just untrue. They were forced into it by the federal Govt. What the banks were responsible for was packaging them up and cutting them into pieces and selling those pieces off.