Ron Unz of the American Conservative posits that 375-year old Harvard University has grown so rich that it is now essentially a giant hedge fund with a little school attached.

The evidence:

Harvard's endowment is over $30 billion.

To manage this endowment, Harvard employs a platoon of hedge fund managers who are paid like, well, hedge fund managers.

In 2004, Unz reports, the top 5 of these hedge fund managers, took home $78 million in a single year.

That's $16 million apiece.

450 Harvard full professors, meanwhile, take home $85 million a year, Unz reports.

That's $188,000 apiece.

* UPDATE: A Harvard spokesman contacted us to emphasize that the endowment compensation that Unz cites came in 2004 and that the university has since changed how it manages its endowment. (My original headline suggested that the 450-professors ratio was ongoing; I apologize for this mistake).

The head of Harvard's endowment made $3 million last year, the spokesman says, and the top 5 endowment managers made about a quarter of the 2004 figure (~$20 million, or $4 million apiece).

The University also said that it has 1,050 full professors.

Harvard does not disclose how much it pays its professors, but assuming Harvard professors make about as much as the figure cited in the American Conservative ($188,000 a year), Harvard's top endowment managers now make about 20 times what a professor makes. Harvard's top 5 endowment managers, meanwhile, took home about as much as 100 professors last year.

SEE ALSO: Now China Has Cloned Steve Jobs

(via Mike Konczal @rortybomb)

