Question: I keep reading about canceled academic searches + people not getting considered for tenure b/c of COVID. What’s the reasoning? Why will universities suffer so much financial hardship + what are they doing to mitigate it now? Not trying to be a jerk - genuinely curious.

After all my years of education, I never realized HOW university investments worked until chatting with an acquaintance who left banking to handle investments for an R1. Never occurred to me that endowments were basically retirement portfolios on a massive scale - and so global.

His job was to fly all over the world to look into possible large-scale investments. A global plan might seem good during a global boom, but won’t mitigate much now. I assume most people aren’t aware of these practices.