University of NV for Free!

Originally posted in a LVRJ forum

There are ~450,000 kids in Nevada K-12 (public+private). Assume, 35,000 enter 1st grade with 25% attrition. That means ~25,000 HS diplomas awarded here each yr.

The University of Nevada (now UNR) was established as a small A&M school. It was endowed with capital sufficient to make further taxpayer obligation to it  unnecessary. Basically all of UNR's applied science students should be getting free rides or else paying just nominal tuition. That's right.

UNR's endowment is on the order of $200M. The trust manager should be able to yield 5% -- $10M/yr. [I doubt that highly paid, politically connected nincompoop returns even *half* of that]. 1/2 gets paid out to cover operating expenses (the rest reinvested).

I could argue for much a lower number, but assume operating expenses are $10,000 per student. That means you could enroll ~500 students TUITION FREE. UNLV is similar. Consolidate its endowment and science programs at UNR and you can support ~1,000 students (250 per class).

The top 1% of NV high school graduates would be eligible.

If our political constituencies object we could modify this structure slightly. Reserve 500 seats for women, 10 for ethnic minorities, another 100 for jocks, etc.