FishbowlNY dubs it a Media Fairy Tale. 

The idea?

Harvard University, Yale University, Stanford University, Princeton University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Columbia University, and the University of Pennsylvania should rescue the country’s leading newspapers by pooling together their resources.

“The time has come,” Lee Smith writes in the current issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education. “The plan I have in mind would call upon the richest institutions to set aside 3 percent of their endowments to buy The New York Times. That's for a start. Additional purchases of other newspapers by other endowments should follow.”

Why, you ask?
For the students, of course!

“How would students be able to think about the world beyond the institution's walls without the constant flow of timely information collected by journalists?” Lee ponders.

More importantly, colleges should assume responsibility for the “perilous financial condition” of media today because “faculty members are the experts that the news media often cite.”

Sure, sure, but what’s it gonna cost ‘em?

At the end of the most recent fiscal year the schools’ combined endowments totaled just under $114-billion. According to Lee, if each university put 3% of its endowment in a pool, the sum of $3.4-billion, a premium price to buy the Times.

Get the details here.