r/PoursTea • u/Timbucktwo1230 🫖 Mod ☕️ • 10d ago

Murdered By Words 🩸 Cornell University

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10.8k Upvotes

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33

u/Idiotwithaphone79 10d ago

I am not well off and, English is not my first language. With that being said, does "50% bequest of my estate" mean this dude was going to leave half of his earthly belongings to the school he went to? If this comment is too far off the point of the comment, please disregard it as I'm not trying to diminish his message. I'm just trying to understand it all the way through. Thanks and, sorry if it's a bit ranty.

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u/bachelurkette 10d ago

Right. like, pick literally any real charity, dude. crazy town

32

u/PhysicsCentrism 10d ago

Those donations are a form of charity. Endowment money at major universities like Cornell is used to fund financial aid for students. I went to an Ivy and had friends from poor families who got paid a stipend to attend. That money is possible because of the large endowment.

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u/BornInAFish 10d ago

It also directly and substantially supports faculty academic freedom, which is a cornerstone of science which ultimately benefits everyone.

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u/Idiotwithaphone79 10d ago

Oh. So it's also a tax break? The reason this confuses me I guess is, usually people seem to fight their spouse's claim for half when they divorce and it seemed unusual to my poor people sensibilities to count that as a possibility. Writing huge checks for fake libraries and stuff, I understand. Just handing some money over for a tax break because it's the easiest way to get the IRS not to look at your other dealings, I also get. The naming in the will in the amount of 50% though, I was having a hard time with. Thanks for clearing that up.

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u/Platinum5788 10d ago

It's not a tax break. The first $14 million is handed down tax-free to heirs in the US, so unless the letter writer is super super rich, there's no taxes to be paid.

I would guess that the letter writer is lying about donating half of their estate to the university.

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u/erossthescienceboss 10d ago

If they were going to bequest half, the school’s fundraising dept is likely already aware of it. You notify these kinds of donations in advance so that 1) the school/charity/nonprofit can plan, and 2) you can get the social benefits of being a major donor while still alive.

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u/Unlikely-Key-234 10d ago

According to his financial disclosures from when he ran for office his networth is likely under $65k. Not likely Cornell is planning anything around this guy's donation.

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u/notsolittleliongirl 10d ago

Alums donating part of their estate to the alma mater they feel set them up for success is very common. The top 20s have been using this strategy for decades, which is one of the main reasons they have insane amounts of money.

Source: used to work in university finance office for a Top 20.

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u/Dobber16 10d ago

I don’t think they’re lying about that personally, but whether they are or not really doesn’t matter all that much if it leads to significantly reduced donations this year & next

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u/PhysicsCentrism 10d ago

I think it’s just that people want to support an institution that benefited them and can benefit others.

Especially if you don’t have kids, can’t take your money with you when you die so it might as well go to somewhere you support.

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u/Idiotwithaphone79 10d ago

50% off the top is a lot of gratitude in a world where people fight the mother of their children in court for that exact amount. Before I made this comment I asked my wife if it sounded like I was bashing this guy. She said it did a little bit and that's loving wife speak for "probably". I want to make clear, I am not! I'm only struggling with the concept of the idea.

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u/PhysicsCentrism 10d ago

Again, money doesn’t matter when you are dead

0

u/Darmok47 10d ago

I wish this was more widely known. I went to a top public university but I might have been able to go to an Ivy if I had known. My parents never went to college and my guidance counselor was useless. so I just assumed Ivy Leagues were more expensive.

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u/AnyEverywhere8 10d ago edited 10d ago

While I personally wouldn’t leave half of my estate to a university, deciding to do so is (supposed to be) promoting science, arts, and education. That’s hardly a despicable thing to do…

There is no advanced society without promoting intellectualism. Leading universities do amazing things for civilization.

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u/real-bebsi 10d ago

the fund isn't promoting intellectualism it's promoting his progeny to attend the university without needing to have the 5.0 GPA, 43 extra curriculars, and the sob story to be able to attend the ivy league

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u/PrimalNumber 10d ago

Helping others by donating your wealth to the university that helped mold you and prepare you to make such wealth is a noble and honorable thing to do, even in today’s anti-establishment zeitgeist

1

u/Idiotwithaphone79 10d ago

Thanks. If his intentions are that pure with his money, and not just trying to keep from his kids having to pay a wealth tax on their inheritance, I truly hope he'll find a way to help those future generations that doesn't involve giving it to people complicit in rape. Gang or otherwise.

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u/AnyEverywhere8 10d ago

Well he is saying that he’s no longer giving to them now that he knows they’re complicit in gang rape lol

1

u/bachelurkette 10d ago

The thing about charitable tax breaks is even if you didn’t give that money to charity, you would still get to keep more of it if it was all taxed. Like, unless you’re one of these massive corps that has a functional 0% tax rate (however that works), charitable giving isn’t going to have you end up with MORE money than you started had you not donated it. It’s just lowering the barrier to entry for people to be generous.

The federal inheritance tax is also quite low and starts at a very high price tag. I live in one of the handful of states that on top of that has a state-level estate tax for basically any asset you inherit, but it’s like, pennies on the dollar. Leaving 50% of an estate large enough to potentially be taxed federally is still a life changing cash infusion for a small nonprofit, for example.

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u/bachelurkette 10d ago

I’m really going to struggle to be convinced that out of all things on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Charitable Needs right now, a university that already has a massive endowment needs half of this guy’s estate when he dies vs. organizations that provide direct aid for food insecurity, homelessness, DV escape support, etc.

Maybe he also is a mega donor to all of these things already, in which case, I have nothing to criticize and should mind my own business. But personally, although I got a fabulous education at both of my non-Ivy public universities that definitely helped me get where I am today, neither of them are going to see the kind of money that I’m throwing at the teen center in my hometown that’s barely staying afloat while trying to keep vulnerable kids from unaliving themselves. I guess I have a hard time taking a mega donation to an Ivy League endowment quite as seriously with the state of the world lately.

Respect to him for pulling it over this situation regardless though.

0

u/curvedmanifolds 10d ago

Are you seriously bitching about a guy paying for kids' education?

0

u/real-bebsi 10d ago

Ivy leagues are inherently classist and donating large somes of wealth to them upholds the class based university zeitgeist

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u/PrimalNumber 10d ago

Guess what, virtually all public universities have private endowments from alumni and other friends of the university. This isn’t about class.

The world needs more educated people, not less, and giving to schools doesn’t have to pass anyone’s cultural purity test.

1

u/real-bebsi 10d ago

it's about class. The elite always send their kids who have mid grades and performance to Ivy Leagues off the back of their wealth while poor students who try hard but couldn't do extra curriculars have to go to state schools. The university you attend is itself a status symbol that affects your lifetime earnings potential. it's all classism. If Universities had to shuffle their professors and a teacher could teach one year at Harvard and then one year at UCLA and then the next year find themselves at East Carolina University would not be a classist system, but when the best can only at the highest institutions that prodiminatly only let in the wealthiest applicants and keep a small reserve for exceptional students so the wealthiest can pay themselves on the back, it's classist.

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u/External_Gas5606 10d ago

Financial aid is charity. Keeps these elite schools full of more normal people.

I would agree of the money goes toward sports complexes and such. That's not charity

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u/koyaani 10d ago

Estate tax and public funding would be better

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u/External_Gas5606 10d ago

Ideally yes

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u/surenopemaybe 10d ago

Then the schools would be beholden to the government. Didn’t Trump try to shut down Harvard? They told him to fuck off because they have billions in endowments and can be totally independent of the whims of politicians. Universities should be independent of politics and strive for truth, being dependent on the government for money endangers that.

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u/curvedmanifolds 10d ago

If my grandma had wheels she'd be a bike

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u/koyaani 10d ago

No, that's been her nickname around town for decades

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u/BenignPharmacology 10d ago

These schools tend to have the best financial aid packages available, thanks mostly to donations and whatnot. I got to go to an Ivy League for ~5k/yr with 0 loans, because of my family’s low income and the really generous financial aid program. I was accepted to several schools, and the Ivy League financial aid offers were uniformly better than every single alternative.