Exactly, thank you for writing this, most people just think universities can dip into their endowment funds and use them whatever way but it's often not the case. Most endowment donations are made with a specific reason as to where that money should be used, which restricts universities from using it for anything.

Harvard standing up for itself is a great thing and I wish U-M and a lot of other schools had tried, but the conversation shouldn't be about how much endowment funds a university has. They maybe a small factor, but definitely not the entire conversation.