> UPenn is THE most obvious. Sitting on a $20,000,000,000 endowment fund that went up +170% over 10 years while Philadelphia rots with drug use, poverty, and gun violence.

Endowments have strings attached that limits the use of funds, the endowed money isn’t just a general slush fund: https://www.acenet.edu/Documents/Understanding-College-and-U...

Also, an endowment is meant to be perpetual, so only a small fraction of it is spent every year to ensure the principal amount doesn’t go down. “Don’t kill the golden goose” in other words.