I don’t think Penn is going to pay for Reddit bots lmao. Also, that’s simply not how endowments work. Large endowments come with very specific instructions for how they are to be used (e.g. research in XYZ lab, building XYZ lab/dorm, funding a professorship, updating library computers, etc.). Even when you get calls/letters from a university asking for a donation, your money doesn’t go into a savings/checking account- it has a specified fund in the request, like an alumni event fund, scholarship fund, etc. Funds from tuition are also mapped out in a budget released by the University every fiscal year and made public to all university students and staff. It is illegal for them to use donations outside of the specified endowment purpose.

Also, consider the cost of running a world renowned research university with ~20k students. They have to recruit and pay the world’s foremost experts in hundreds of fields of study, accommodate 20k students daily (dorms, meal plans, etc.), pay for state of the art research labs (many of which are quite expensive, think nano-tech), renew technology yearly, pay thousands of non-academic personnel, and this is all before we get to costs associated with PennMedicine.

They are a fucking machine, and I’m sure there is a very effective and well budgeted PR team. I just don’t think it’s quite as big-brother as paying for downvotes or being able to control the national media.