The managers who got double-digit millions for running Harvard Management Co. were terribly overpaid, according to David Swensen, chief investment officer at rival Yale University. Speaking before a forum of university endowment managers, Swensen said for all the tens of millions Harvard paid to the likes of HMC President Jack Meyer and managers David Mittleman and Maurice Samuels, the endowment could have done better at a fraction of the cost – like Yale does. The proof is in the hasty pudding. Swensen, according to the Bloomberg News, noted that since 1990, Yale’s outside managers have outperformed the Harvard crew by 0.5 percentage points each year, with Yale’s performance over the past 20 years edging Harvard 16.1% to 14.9%. Harvard has come under withering criticism from school alumni for its expensive ways. One Harvard alumnus suggested the school could have taken the money paid annually to the fund managers and put it to better use by reducing the tuition debt burden to students whose families can’t afford it.
