There is a small but growing move afoot to require universities with multi-billion dollar endowments to stop charging tuition. In fact, some proponents of the idea are trying to get a seat on the board that oversees Harvard, and a New York congressman is sponsoring legislation to require rich universities to spend more of their endowments on tuition assistance. Sounds like they're making a simple argument, right? But University endowments aren’t big, liquid pools of money, like what parents with a kid in college wish for. “They’re not rainy day funds or simple checking accounts that colleges and universities have to call on,” said Liz Clark, director of federal affairs at the National Association of College and University Business Officers.

January 15, 2016 ・ From Marketplace (NPR)