Why can't stinking rich Ivies cope with losing a few hundred million?

Columbia, the first victim of Donald Trump’s assault on America’s grandest universities, has an endowment of roughly $15bn. Mr Trump’s administration withheld a mere $400m in federal funding when it handed Columbia its peremptory list of demands. Why, indignant alumni ask, did Columbia not simply tell Mr Trump to get lost and fall back on its plump cushion of billions?

Explore more

This article appeared in the Briefing section of the print edition under the headline “Cash poor”