The "nobody expects anything from Harvard" statement might be a bit too strong. I've seen people say that Harvard has a responsibility to do more social good with it's massive endowment. Here's one example [1]:
> Endowments over $1 billion should be taxed if the university doesn’t grow freshman seats at 1.5x the rate of population growth. Harvard, MIT, and Yale have combined endowments (approximately $85 billion) greater than the GDP of many Latin American nations.
So maybe the issue isn't with expectations, but with incentives: to effect change in these old hierarchical systems, you need elitists to be anti-elitist; to make decisions against one's interests for the betterment of others.
> Endowments over $1 billion should be taxed if the university doesn’t grow freshman seats at 1.5x the rate of population growth. Harvard, MIT, and Yale have combined endowments (approximately $85 billion) greater than the GDP of many Latin American nations.
So maybe the issue isn't with expectations, but with incentives: to effect change in these old hierarchical systems, you need elitists to be anti-elitist; to make decisions against one's interests for the betterment of others.
[1] https://www.profgalloway.com/how-i-got-here