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Harvard is the richest college in America, and it was just promised $400 million more
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Hedge fund manager John A. Paulson is donating $400 million to Harvard University's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. - photo by JJ Feinauer
Hedge fund manager John A. Paulson is donating $400 million to Harvard University's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, according the Wall Street Journal, and there are those who think that may not have been the best use of a couple hundred million dollars.

"Let me be extremely clear: Harvard is not a charity," Vox's Dylan Matthews wrote in reaction to the announcement. "If you want to donate to it as a bribe to help your kids get in, go nuts. ... But if you want to make the world a better place, your dollars are better spent literally anywhere else."

As Matthews points out, Harvard is "the most lavishly endowed university in the world," and according to their own financial reports, has literally billions of dollars at its disposal.

This also isn't the first time a donation to Harvard has turned some heads. Last year, real estate billionaire Gerald Chan donated $350 million to the School of Public Health. A donation that held the record for Harvard until Paulson came along.

"The gift is part of a wave of enormous donations to schools with large endowments in recent years that highlights the diverging fortunes of the nation's colleges," The Wall Street Journal wrote at the time of Chan's donation.

It's little surprise, however, that Harvard would generate so much money. According to a report by The Atlantic from 2013, Harvard has the highest number of billionaire alumni in the country.

But that's no excuse, Matthews argues, for the astounding amount of money the university receives.

"Giving to Harvard is not philanthropy," he continued. "It's not helping people who need help, and it's obscene that Paulson is getting a massive tax write-off for it."

And Matthews hasn't been the only vocal critic of the record-setting donation. Popular author and New Yorker columnist Malcolm Gladwell made a rare dive into Twitter-rant territory when he heard the news.

Gladwell, like Matthews, was particularly scandalized by the notion that Harvard somehow needed the money to continue operations.

But according to Market Watch's Jillian Berman, the recent rise in outlandish donations to wealthy schools isn't really about money at all.

"His tendency to publicly lavish resources on some of the nations richest schools ensures that the giver will be remembered forever (or at least until someone else makes a bigger donation) as a beneficiary of a cultural institution," Berman wrote.

For that reason, according to Berman, many wealthy donors seek out high-profile institutions, such as Harvard, because "rich people tend to become less generous when no one knows theyre giving."
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Record April boosts Savannah's container trade at port
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The Port of Savannah moved 356,700 20-foot equivalent container units in April, an increase of 7.1 percent. - photo by Provided

The Georgia Ports Authority's busiest April ever pushed its fiscal year-to-date totals to more than 3.4 million 20-foot equivalent container units (TEUs), an increase of 8.8 percent, or 280,000 TEUs, compared to the first 10 months of fiscal 2017.

"We're on track to move more than 300,000 TEUs in every month of the fiscal year, which will be a first for the authority," said GPA Executive Director Griff Lynch. "We're also anticipating this to be the first fiscal year for the Port of Savannah to handle more than 4 million TEUs."

April volumes reached 356,700 20-foot equivalent container units, up 7.1 percent or 23,700 units. As the fastest growing containerport in the nation, the Port of Savannah has achieved a compound annual growth rate of more than 5 percent a year over the past decade.

"As reported in the recent economic impact study by UGA's Terry College of Business, trade through Georgia's deepwater ports translates into jobs, higher incomes and greater productivity," said GPA Board Chairman Jimmy Allgood. "In every region of Georgia, employers rely on the ports of Savannah and Brunswick to help them become more competitive on the global stage."

To strengthen the Port of Savannah's ability to support the state's future economic growth, the GPA Board approved $66 million in terminal upgrades, including $24 million for the purchase of 10 additional rubber-tired gantry cranes.  

"The authority is committed to building additional capacity ahead of demand to ensure the Port of Savannah remains a trusted link in the supply chain serving Georgia and the Southeast," Lynch said.

The crane purchase will bring the fleet at Garden City Terminal to 156 RTGs. The new cranes will support three new container rows, which the board approved in March. The additional container rows will increase annual capacity at the Port of Savannah by 150,000 TEUs.

The RTGs will work over stacks that are five containers high and six deep, with a truck lane running alongside the stacks. Capable of running on electricity, the cranes will have a lift capacity of 50 metric tons.

The cranes will arrive in two batches of five in the first and second quarters of calendar year 2019.

 Also at Monday's meeting, the GPA Board elected its officers, with Jimmy Allgood as chairman, Will McKnight taking the position of vice chairman and Joel Wooten elected as the next secretary/treasurer.

For more information, visit gaports.com, or contact GPA Senior Director of Corporate Communications Robert Morris at (912) 964-3855 or rmorris@gaports.com.

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