SMU’s endowment has now hit $1 billion dollars, making us one of 56 schools across the nation that have reached the billion-dollar category.

Ed Board has school spirit (yes we do), and we’re proud that our school has now reached the upper echelons of financial investment and savings. This puts us in the same financial league as schools like Harvard and Yale, even if their endowments currently trounce ours by many billions of dollars. We’ll get there, however; Ed Board has faith.However, Ed Board also has questions.

Since the school has its fingers (or hooves, if you will) in several different pies, including stocks, real estate and oil, this endowment will probably keep growing, but the school only allocates 14 to 15 percent of these funds to the school’s running costs each year.

Ed Board has some suggestions on how to use some of this wealth. We realize some has to be saved for a rainy day, but the improvements that could be made to our campus with this money would not be a drop in the bucket in the long run.

The Owen Fine Arts Center could use an upgrade; why not give the dancers, actors and singers additional performance space and studios?

Moody Coliseum could also use some renovation; our football players have a great stadium, and our basketball players deserve a state-of-the-art facility, as well.

Some more money could also be channeled to Fondren Library to make it into a 24-hour study and research facility, for those especially dedicated students.

And, of course, for those students who don’t live in the library, some more on-campus apartments would be appreciated, especially after the closing of University Gardens. Upperclassmen don’t want to live in the dorms and deal with community showers all four years, but then again, there’s not much variety on campus to choose from now.

The money could also be used to finance the academic and intellectual structure of the campus, as well. More scholarships are always appreciated, especially with the ever-escalating price of tuition.

Or, we could just go all the way, buy a small island in the Pacific and transfer the university to the shoreline. We could get our education and a great tan at the same time.

But seriously, a billion dollars is a lot to be sitting on. Students don’t pick a school based on the endowment but instead on facilities, student life and other resources.

While investments may make us competitive in the financial market, improvements on campus could make us more competitive with other schools.