NYU, Foundations Help Top Staff Finance Vacation Homes

New York University and foundations affiliated with the institution have loaned hundreds of thousands of dollars to top administrators and star faculty to purchase or keep vacation properties, according to The New York Times.

University President John Sexton received a $600,000 loan, later increased to $1-million, from an NYU foundation for a beach house on Fire Island. The article cites several other executives and medical or law school faculty members who have gotten loans for second homes on Fire Island or in the Hamptons, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania.

While other major universities have been known to help top executives and faculty with home loans, experts on university compensation tell the Times that aid for vacation properties is highly unusual. An NYU spokesman said the loans help secure top academic talent as part of a “sustained and successful effort … to transform NYU from a regional university into a world-class research residential university.”