Stephen Schwarzman — the billionaire CEO of private equity giant Blackstone who once compared the Obama administration's proposal to close the carried interest tax loophole to the Nazi invasion of Poland — has decided to give $150 million to Yale to build a performing arts center.

The primary beneficiaries of this will be Yale students, and Yale students are stupid rich. Not as rich as Schwarzman (who's worth $13.2 billion, per Bloomberg, of which he's donating a little more than 1 percent), but rich. Only 52 percent of Yale students receive financial aid from the university. Meanwhile, 100 percent of families making under $100,000, and 99 percent of families making between $100,000 and $200,000, qualified for aid. In other words, you need to make a ridiculously large amount of money to not qualify for aid. You have to be in the 1 percent or very close. And almost half of Yale students are just that rich.

Yale students are also smart. The middle range of SAT scores for the latest freshman class ranged from 2120 to 2390 out of 2400. For comparison, the average score nationwide is a little under 1500. The SATs are basically just an IQ test, and while IQ isn't everything, it is correlated with higher income, better health, and longer life expectancy — even after you control for socioeconomic factors. And IQ, of course, isn't something anyone chooses. Yale students just lucked into good genes and/or good childhood environments that, due to no hard work of their own, will pay considerable dividends.

Yale as an institution is also super-rich. Its endowment totaled $23.9 billion as of June 30, 2014, trailing only Harvard. As it turns out, the school can already afford performing arts facilities, and a whole lot of them at that. Here's the 654-seat University Theater, used both for undergraduate plays and by the School of Drama:

Not big enough for ya? Try the 2,650-seat Woolsey Hall, used by the undergraduate orchestra and the School of Music:

But thanks to Schwarzman the school will get yet another one.

The New York Times's Robin Pogrebin describes Schwarzman's contribution as an "act of philanthropy." It is not. Sure, it's not the absolute worst thing one could do with one's money. I suppose it's a bit better than literally piling $150 million in dollar bills together in one location and then setting them on fire, insofar as building a performing arts center employs more people than assembling a massive money pile would. It's definitely better than using the money to set up a private island upon which to hunt man for sport.

But it's hard to imagine a worse way to use the money that still entitles Schwarzman to a charitable tax deduction. Yale is not a charity. It is a finishing school that overwhelmingly serves children of wealth and privilege. Supporting its scientific and particularly biomedical research is worthwhile, but the school is already far richer than all but one of its peer institutions and has access to considerable federal funds in that area, as well. And, of course, Schwarzman isn't supporting Yale's biomedical research. He's giving its dancers a nicer stage upon which to pirouette.

Literally any other charity, save maybe Harvard, is a better choice. Schwarzman could give $150 million to distribute bednets in sub-Saharan Africa, a highly cost-effective way to save lives. He could give $150 million directly to poor people in Kenya and Uganda through GiveDirectly. He could give $150 million to deworming efforts that spare children ailments that can cause immense pain and poverty. He could give $150 million to the Open Philanthropy Project or the Gates Foundation or another group doing careful, rigorous work to determine the best ways to use charitable resources to make the world a better place. He could, in fact, do all of the above because he's crazy stupid rich.

Of course, even the most generous among the rich spend heavily on themselves. Bill Gates may hope to spend down his fortune by fighting HIV and malaria in the developing world, but he also found the money to buy his daughter a 228-acre horse farm with 121 stalls, a race track, and staff lodging for up to 32 people. And maybe that's how Schwarzman's profligacy is best interpreted. He's a Yale alum, and this donation clearly provides some kind of emotional benefit to him.

But it's not philanthropy. It's not helping people who need help, and it's obscene that Schwarzman is getting a massive tax write-off for it. Giving to Yale is not an act of altruism. It's a gigantic, immoral waste of money, and it's long past time we started treating it as such.

Correction: This post originally stated that GiveDirectly works in Tanzania; it's so far just in Kenya and Uganda. Still better than Yale.