The Ivy League University system consists of eight northeastern universities, of which, three of these, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, have the largest endowment funds of any higher education institution in America, indicating that these nonprofits have built up substantial amounts of real wealth, with Harvard's endowment fund currently resting at $37.6 billion dollars. To get somewhat of a perspective of how much money these Ivy Colleges have in aggregate, zerohedge.com reported that the endowment amount for all Ivy League universities is currently: "equivalent to a full-ride scholarship for all Ivy League undergraduate students for 51-years, or until 2068."
While it makes sense for these schools to be nonprofit in the sense that they are providing a known public benefit, there are massive advantages in regards to taxation and federal aid for those schools by virtue of being nonprofit. For instance, nonprofits are eligible to receive both State and Federal grants, as well as State and Federal student loan guarantees for tuition and similar. In addition, these colleges have massive endowment funds that are permitted to invest into whatever they so desire to do without mandated outside supervision or restraint, in which, unlike ordinary taxpayers that have to pay capital gains on short as well as long-time profits, these universities pay no taxes whatsoever to the state, local, or federal branches of the government. Not only does this allow money to grow at a much more rapid pace because none of their gains are penalized by taxes, it also pointedly means, that investment decisions need not take into account tax consequences, a massive advantage these nonprofits have over individuals as well as corporations that are obligated to pay taxes on their investment gains.
Additionally, money is a definitely a form of power, and with their endowment funds at such massive amounts, this would signify that these respective universities will pretty much have their way in regards to how they are or are not treated by their surrounding community, for money often tips the scales of justice in the favor of those that have access to lots of it, as opposed to those that do not.
This said, an honest inquiry suggests that the good governance of a nonprofit would want to ask the question as to how big an endowment fund should be allowed to grow, no matter its supposed benefit and supposed good for the public, without some sort of restriction or obligation to spend or divert at least a percentage of said funds yearly to the benefit of the common people who are not attending the institution to begin with, but are part of the public square in American life.
Not only is this a reasonable question to ask, it should be asked, because an institution that exists to benefit its own class of people, essentially, is by definition, bypassing a significant amount of the swath of the general public that are entitled to the basic benefits of the largess that a nonprofit institution has amassed over an extended period of time, which will continue, in theory, for perpetuity. Nonprofit universities have an obligation, especially those on the massive scale of these Ivy League schools, to respond to: "Vox clamantis in deserto" or the voice of one crying in the wilderness which is Dartmouth's school motto.