From the online Temple News site.
Temple University in Philadelphia is a “Commonwealth-related” school. This means, it gets a sizable percentage of its budget from the taxpayers of Pennsylvania.
For years now, I have questioned whether Temple University Japan breaks even or loses money. The “black box” is the cost of rent for the Azabu Juban campus. It looks very much like Temple hides that cost as part of capitalized lease adjustments on the balance sheet—rather than as an expense. The controller of Temple University would never respond to the direct question. And I ain’t holding my breath.
But the question is still there.
In 2011’s budget, Governor Corbett whacked something like $45 million out of Temple, causing the school to raise tuition by 10%. What is interesting about the Temple News story, is that people connected to the university say that a surplus of money ($90 million) is sitting there, such that Temple could survive another $40 million something cut, and not have tuition skyrocket.
This sounds like Corbett is on to something. And it also shows how Temple can just go piss money in Tokyo and not care. And why they have historically been able to afford to create high salaried positions for wives and children of people connected to Temple, or their law school professor buddies at Penn.
[Update #1: A link to Temple’s nonprofit Form 990, which the school must file with the IRS. On page 30 of the PDF, it shows about $2.5 million going out for 10 employees in Japan. Earlier in the filing, the school mentions its private auditor report, which comes out in late October every year. You can’t match the $2.5 million to any specific line in the auditor’s report, though. In fact, that report says only $1 million transfers between the parent in Philadelphia and TUJ.]
Hoofin 