Campus Entrepreneurship

Eco-Libris, a new venture (h/t CoolBusinessIdeas.com &  TriplePundit.com) with a green/social component to it is an interesting new for profit, social venture. The company provides book buyers the opportunity to purchase trees for planting each time they purchase a books. This is what they call sustainable reading. (sounds similar to those carbon offsets that folks like Al Gore buy so that they can fly their Gulfstreams guilt free)

While this firm doesn’t appear to be started by campus entrepreneurs, it is the type of product/service that would likely do well on college campuses. We have already seen campus entrepreneurs from ASU launch a hybrid taxi service. BTW, for those who are Jewish or have some knowledge of Israeli history, it is obvious where the entrepreneurs (who are Israeli) came up with the idea. (hint)

When buying a tree via Eco-Libris or a reseller, you receive a sticker to put on your book (kind like a hybrid tag on a car) so that others know that your book has not had a negative impact on the planet.

Can you think of other products/services that neutralize ‘damaging’ consumption behaviors? Could there be some kind of offset for ipods, cell phones, and computers? How about offsets for beer cans? (think Ethos Water, which I believe was bought by Starbucks)

This blog discussed Harvard and some other schools recent decision to start making full grants as assistance for students rather than loans. The reason for this new trend is that many school endowments have become enormous — grabbing the angry attention of politicians and parents wondering why tuition and costs are so high when school coffers are so full.

This recent USA Today article explains how dramatically school endowments have grown — an average of 17% last year. From the piece,

The number of colleges and universities boasting endowments of $1 billion or more climbed by 14 last year to a record 76, nearly doubling the number of such schools five years ago. And as tuition increases continue to outpace inflation, that’s prompting some critics to step up their pressure on colleges to share more of their wealth.

Harvard’s nearly $6 billion increase last year alone is larger than the endowments of all but 14 of the 785 schools that participated in the study. And the combined value of the top 10 colleges represents 35% of the $411 billion in total endowment assets reported.

Yet the percentage of the endowment those schools spend each year — for everything from hiring faculties to building maintenance to competing for research — is among the lowest. Schools with $500 million or more in assets reported spending an average 4.4%, vs. an overall average payout last year of 4.6%. (more…)