Amar Bose To Donate Company To M.I.T. 275
MBC1977 writes with this eyebrow-raising news from CNN: "'The Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced Friday that [Amar] Bose, the 81-year-old founder of the sound system company that bears his name, has donated the majority of Bose Corp.'s stock to the school.'
Very cool indeed!"
Re:M.I.T. already has an $8 billion endowment. (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not give it to a school or schools that actually deserve the money?
FTFY
Re:Bose quality (Score:4, Insightful)
While the bumper sticker Bose trashing you've been hearing here is pretty much accurate, if you read serious reviews you'll find that the universal gripe with Bose isn't really their sound but their value. They don't sound bad so much as they sound just as good as equipment costing a third as much money, and they sound considerably worse than almost anything else you could buy at the same inflated price. So you're suggestion that they sound damn good at a mid range price seems like you haven't done much comparison listening. You basically hit a bullseye on Bose greatest weakness as a product and called it a strength. Spend 5 minutes with Google "best speakers for $X" where X is what you spent on those over priced Bose speakers and you'll find a giant pile of simultaneously better and cheaper equipment. Take the $350 you spent on pretty much anything Bose and get some Audioengine A5's instead.
Re:Midrange (Score:5, Insightful)
I, on the other hand, went to Moody Bible Institute [moody.edu]. It is a college that aims to prepare people to do full-time Christian ministry. Since most of these graduates wind up in fields that don't have great earning potential, they don't charge tuition. I'll repeat that: they don't charge tuition. It's not an easy school to get in to, (it's certainly not for everyone) and it is by no means perfect, but it was the right fit for me. (I'm a missionary, but I'm up late tonight doing some open source coding and getting distracted by Slashdot.) Anyway, Moody avoids charging tuition by having a profitable publishing house, as well as a radio station and broadcast media company. All of the profits that they turn from these (as well as some hefty donations) are what keep the financial wheels turning at the school. When I graduated in 2005, they estimated that for my graduating class, the waived tuition amounted to a $78,000 scholarship per graduating student.
I receive letters occasionally from Moody asking for donations, and these are MUCH more easy for me to stomach. I don't have much in the way of spare money at the moment, but if/when I have the means, supporting Moody is something I'd like to do. I appreciate my education, and the fact that I could get through it without taking out ANY student loans, and I'd love to help present that opportunity to others if at all possible.
Anyway, I realize that I'm on a tangent, but I think that Moody Bible Institute is as close to a true non-profit as I've seen any university be.
Re:Midrange (Score:5, Insightful)
College Tuition has been rising at about twice the rate of inflation over the past ten years [anengineerindc.com]. If you look at Harvard's endowment, they could easily pay every student's tuition [anengineerindc.com] based on extremely conservative returns on their 26 billion investment.
Colleges and universities are a racket. Few other industries, as a whole, have experienced the same kind of wholesale constant increase in funds like the education market.
Well, except for the defense industry, but that's another story.
To get back on topic, donating voting shares to MIT would have been a very interesting opportunity for students -- they would get to run the company, and learn all about the real-world application of technology. Alas, with dividends only, I'm not sure there's as much education going on as there could have been.