Just as central banks in China, India, Russia and many other nations view gold as a monetary reserve protection against the falling dollar, majoracademic institutions are looking for new asset classes like precious metals and commodities to produce returns that can be put to work as a source of funds for a large portion of college operating expenses.
"Thus, while hangover is a common phenomenon among college drinkers, for most of them it occurs rarely enough that it is unlikely to have a major deleterious impact on academic performance, " Dr Slutske said.
For instance, MIT's Eric Lander founded Millennium Pharmaceuticals (nasdaq: MLNM - news - people ) in 1993, but that didn't stop him from being a major force in the academic effort to map the human genome.