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I wondered about that, and I've lost the link long ago, but they claimed to be on the accountancy or financial management or whatever of Harvard, and that the perception of "you've got a huge endowment, you must be swimming in money" was not correct. All kinds of baked-in running expenses and loan repayments and the like meant that they can't just get their hands on the endowment as it is and use it up, and that the income generated is not keeping up with the demands on it.
As you say, this may well be motivated reasoning and not reliable, but it was someone trying to explain why Harvard couldn't just give $$$$$ to disadvantaged students etc.
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