I bet this is especially the case in STEM schools. The Feds won't pay for all that equipment.
As for suggestions, I got nothin'. Yet.
Yes, but other schools too. Endowments are not expendable (although universities also try to raise expendable funds). Some lab or department would lose about $1.2M (4% of $30M roughly) of annual revenue, big hole their annual budget and they’d fight like hell.
As hard as it might be to just raise $30M of new funds, I think that’s easier. My one experience tweaking an endowment contract was for academic scholarships to attract top students, just to get some flexibility to properly execute the donors intent, but was still a legal process.
Back to topic: Someone wrote earlier about Bama professionalizing their AA when Saban came in. Not sure about details, but it sounds good, update practices. I think you could raise money on that theme and it would make folks like me (who are afraid of donating money that’s pissed away on dumb contracts etc) more comfortable donating in general.