2008 NACUBO Endowment Data is now public

College Search & Selection
1

<p>NACUBO has released its latest tables on the endowments of American colleges. Below is a listing of many of the colleges that were evaluated (all USNWR Tier 1 universities and Top 25 LACs) and how they compare based on their per capita endowments. For those who like the total assets measurements, I also include the rankings for this group of colleges based on this.</p>

<p>Note: I am missing precise data on the UCs and a few other colleges. If anyone has that, would you please post it and I will update the comparison.</p>

<p>MOST IMPORTANT, these measurements were made as of 6/30/08, ie, before most of the damage was done in the financial markets. Many of these colleges experienced severe declines in their endowment assets which will undoubtedly affect financial flexibility and spending patterns on college campuses all across the USA. </p>

<p>Rank , Endowment Per Capita , School , ( Rank in Total Assets )</p>

<p>1 , $2,227,979 , Princeton , ( 4 )
2 , $1,996,682 , Yale , ( 2 )
3 , $1,898,323 , Harvard , ( 1 )
4 , $1,159,664 , Pomona , ( 33 )
5 , $1,012,463 , Amherst , ( 38 )
6 , $985,225 , MIT , ( 6 )
7 , $947,686 , Swarthmore , ( 47 )
8 , $889,964 , Grinnell , ( 44 )
9 , $887,014 , Caltech , ( 31 )
10 , $883,675 , Williams , ( 32 )
11 , $879,268 , Rice , ( 18 )
12 , $869,477 , Stanford , ( 3 )
13 , $676,891 , Wellesley , ( 41 )
14 , $625,748 , Dartmouth , ( 20 )
15 , $537,613 , U Chicago , ( 11 )
16 , $530,640 , Notre Dame , ( 13 )
17 , $484,266 , Bowdoin , ( 79 )
18 , $465,198 , Claremont McK , ( 104 )
19 , $450,360 , Duke , ( 14 )
20 , $445,680 , Haverford , ( 105 )
21 , $445,677 , Smith , ( 49 )
22 , $435,402 , Emory , ( 15 )
23 , $401,819 , Northwestern , ( 8 )
24 , $399,791 , Wash U , ( 17 )
25 , $373,184 , Bryn Mawr , ( 89 )
26 , $363,735 , Hamilton , ( 88 )
27 , $354,000 , Middlebury , ( 73 )
28 , $346,531 , Vassar , ( 77 )
29 , $346,354 , Macalester , ( 90 )
30 , $341,530 , Harvey Mudd , ( 131 )
31 , $336,354 , Brown , ( 24 )
32 , $329,665 , W&L , ( 83 )
33 , $329,509 , U Penn , ( 12 )
34 , $323,192 , Carleton , ( 93 )
35 , $321,371 , Colby , ( 95 )
36 , $321,128 , U Texas , ( 5 )
37 , $315,471 , Columbia , ( 9 )
38 , $299,283 , Davidson , ( 107 )
39 , $297,459 , Vanderbilt , ( 22 )
40 , $274,333 , Oberlin , ( 81 )
41 , $271,970 , Cornell , ( 16 )
42 , $247,800 , Colgate , ( 85 )
43 , $211,545 , Yeshiva , ( 50 )
44 , $202,359 , Wesleyan , ( 92 )
45 , $200,960 , U Tulsa , ( 78 )
46 , $188,523 , U Virginia , ( 19 )
47 , $185,451 , U Rochester , ( 37 )
48 , $184,738 , Wake Forest , ( 56 )
49 , $184,494 , U Michigan , ( 7 )
50 , $179,399 , Case Western , ( 34 )
51 , $164,646 , Lehigh , ( 62 )
52 , $160,843 , Bates , ( 129 )
53 , $148,186 , Tufts , ( 46 )
54 , $145,362 , Texas Christian , ( 54 )
55 , $143,075 , Texas A&M , ( 10 )
56 , $133,508 , Brandeis , ( 84 )
57 , $127,932 , Johns Hopkins , ( 25 )
58 , $126,235 , SMU , ( 48 )
59 , $118,852 , Boston Coll , ( 40 )
60 , $108,645 , Rensselaer , ( 80 )
61 , $107,429 , USC , ( 21 )
62 , $101,782 , Carnegie Mellon , ( 63 )
63 , $98,488 , Tulane , ( 66 )
64 , $92,615 , Worcester , ( 118 )
65 , $92,324 , Pepperdine , ( 86 )
66 , $87,850 , Clark , ( 127 )
67 , $86,380 , U Pittsburgh , ( 28 )
68 , $83,843 , U North Carolina , ( 27 )
69 , $74,714 , Baylor , ( 65 )
70 , $74,407 , W&M , ( 97 )
71 , $71,711 , Georgia Tech , ( 51 )
72 , $71,492 , St. Louis Univ , ( 74 )
73 , $71,429 , Georgetown , ( 64 )
74 , $68,100 , U Delaware , ( 52 )
75 , $59,235 , NYU , ( 26 )
76 , $57,647 , Clarkson , ( 133 )
77 , $56,243 , U Washington , ( 29 )
78 , $54,065 , U Minnesota , ( 23 )
79 , $53,149 , U Nebraska , ( 58 )
80 , $51,614 , Syracuse , ( 69 )
81 , $50,084 , George Washington , ( 55 )
82 , $49,185 , Howard , ( 108 )
83 , $47,641 , U Miami , ( 82 )
84 , $44,397 , Purdue , ( 35 )
85 , $42,634 , U Kansas , ( 59 )
86 , $41,269 , U Wisconsin , ( 36 )
87 , $39,651 , Indiana U , ( 42 )
88 , $39,492 , Ohio State , ( 30 )
89 , $39,070 , U Alabama , ( 68 )
90 , $38,906 , Colorado Sch Mines , ( 134 )
91 , $38,611 , U Oklahoma , ( 60 )
92 , $37,614 , U of Dayton , ( 117 )
93 , $37,299 , Northeastern , ( 91 )
94 , $35,994 , U Missouri (Columbia) , ( 67 )
95 , $35,722 , Boston University , ( 61 )
96 , $35,721 , Penn State , ( 43 )
97 , $35,714 , U of San Diego , ( 128 )
98 , $35,156 , U Kentucky , ( 71 )
99 , $34,494 , U Illinois , ( 45 )
100 , $34,410 , American U , ( 116 )
101 , $33,680 , Drexel , ( 100 )
102 , $32,112 , U Iowa , ( 70 )
103 , $31,000 , Marquette , ( 121 )
104 , $30,246 , Fordham , ( 111 )
105 , $29,629 , U Tennessee , ( 72 )
106 , $27,842 , Michigan State , ( 53 )
107 , $27,832 , Washington State , ( 87 )
108 , $27,645 , U Colorado , ( 75 )
109 , $27,142 , U Denver , ( 126 )
110 , $25,437 , Miami U (OH) , ( 115 )
111 , $24,186 , U Florida , ( 57 )
112 , $23,995 , Loyola U (Chi) , ( 120 )
113 , $23,941 , Clemson , ( 114 )
114 , $23,742 , U Maryland , ( 76 )
115 , $23,165 , U Oregon , ( 110 )
116 , $21,751 , Iowa State , ( 99 )
117 , $21,325 , Illinois Inst Tech , ( 135 )
118 , $20,395 , U New Hampshire , ( 125 )
119 , $19,106 , U Buffalo-SUNY , ( 102 )
120 , $18,389 , Rutgers , ( 94 )
121 , $17,660 , Virginia Tech , ( 103 )
122 , $17,528 , U Georgia , ( 96 )
123 , $17,525 , Auburn , ( 113 )
124 , $17,106 , NC State , ( 101 )
125 , $15,584 , U South Carolina , ( 112 )
126 , $14,794 , Ohio University , ( 124 )
127 , $14,726 , U Mass , ( 119 )
128 , $14,080 , Florida State , ( 98 )
129 , $13,945 , U Arizona , ( 106 )
130 , $13,844 , U Conn , ( 123 )
131 , $13,064 , UCSD , ( 122 )
132 , $11,690 , Michigan Tech , ( 138 )
133 , $9,576 , Arizona State , ( 109 )
134 , $9,478 , UC Irvine , ( 130 )
135 , $6,638 , Colorado State , ( 132 )
136 , $5,269 , UC Davis , ( 136 )
137 , $4,840 , SUNY-Stony Brook , ( 137 )</p>

<pre><code> , na , UC Berkeley , ( )
, na , UCLA , ( )
, na , UC Santa Barbara , ( )
, na , SUNY Binghampton , ( )
, na , SUNY-Envi Sci/For , ( )
, na , Stevens Institute , ( )
, na , UC Riverside , ( )
, na , U Vermont , ( )
, na , UC Santa Cruz , ( )
, na , U of the Pacific , ( )
, na , BYU , ( )
, na , Catholic U , ( )
, na , US Military Acad , ( )
, na , US Naval Acad , ( )
</code></pre>

2

<p>go Emory! bump</p>

3

<p>Go Haverford!</p>

4

<p>Hawkette, your data is not altogether accurate. For example, the UT endowment is not just for austin, it is for the enitre UT system. UT-Austin's endowment is roughly equal to $7 billion.</p>

5

<p>Those numbers are from Jun 30, 2008. None of them are accurate today. None of them. The numbers are all lower now. That includes Michigan's too. Harvard's numbers may be down 50%. </p>

<p>The endowment per student is not that relevant a number either.</p>

<p>Many of the endowmments are very illiquid. The schools don't have access to a large portion of their endowments. A large part of the endowment money never gets to the students.</p>

<p>Schools have access to other money besides endowment money.</p>

<p>These schools also have other assets and debt that affects the schools financial situation. </p>

<p>Most, if not all the schools at the top of the endowment per student list are cutting back. Harvard is cutting back. Stanford is cutting back. Etc. Harvard had to go to the credit markets to fund their needs. Bowdoin is cutting back and adding a tiny amount of students. Brandeis is selling their art work from a museum and closing the museum down.</p>

<p>Some schools use a lot of their endowments to fund their operations. 40% of Harvard's operating costs are funded by its endowment. Other schools use considerably less.</p>

6

<p>As usual, Berea (billion dollar plus endowment for only 1,500 students) and Berry are left out. Santa Clara also had close to a $700 million endowment.</p>

<p>Beyond a certain point, endowment per student is close to irrelevant - law of diminishing returns, and, in this economy, the more endowment spending per student, the more vulnerable the institution is to real decline in educational quality.</p>

7

<p>That list is as useful as a 2007 401K statement.</p>

8

<p>Endowment per student is really really irrelevant.</p>

<p>Where is the exact overall endowment numbers?</p>

<p>JHU just finished an 8 year long $3.74 billion dollar capital campaign, second largest university capital campaign in US history, coupled with a 20-30% drop in endowment :D </p>

<p><a href="http://www.nacubo.org/documents/research/NES2008PublicTable-AllInstitutionsByFY08MarketValue.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nacubo.org/documents/research/NES2008PublicTable-AllInstitutionsByFY08MarketValue.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

9

<p>Yea things are much different now....Harvard and Yale have lost alot and I heard Duke may be in big trouble because Duke didn't have nowhere near the endowment of those two but put alot of its endowment in very high risk investments.</p>

10

<p>You missed Lafayette College, which is #40 with approximately $295,000 per student. It is ranked 105 for total endowment (Haverford, which you have at 105 is actually #139).</p>

11

<p>Due to their wealth, HYPS will weather the storm and can afford the (albeit painful) losses. The lesser privates who tried to copy their investment strategies by exposing themselves to "alternative" assets are in a lot of trouble.</p>

12

<p>"Endowment per student is really really irrelevant."</p>

<p>Actually it tells how much money is potentially spent on students, something I would deem quite meaningful. A school with 500 K/ student and a school with 100 K/student clearly would have different abilities to meet student needs. The downside of looking only at endowment/student is the failure to take into account economies of scale for larger endowments.</p>

13

<p>Not necessarily. Put your college or university in a high rent district where land and buildings are expensive and you could have double or triple the value of a rural one, with no difference in educational spending on students. </p>

<p>Even spending per student at some point becomes suspect, when the spending goes to maintain 18-hole golf courses, arboreta, climbing walls, or covered parking lots.</p>

14

<p>
[quote]
Actually it tells how much money is potentially spent on students, something I would deem quite meaningful. A school with 500 K/ student and a school with 100 K/student clearly would have different abilities to meet student needs. The downside of looking only at endowment/student is the failure to take into account economies of scale for larger endowments.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>The actual endowment of a university is split amongst thousands of smaller funds for specific purposes and can only be used as directed by the donors at the point of pledging/bequest.</p>

<p>Donors specify what they want their money to go to, which is hard to say what is the exact amount spent one item like "student needs" if the endowment is a huge collection of donor funds which restricted because donors impose restrictions...</p>

<p>"All of the endowments that we have are restricted in ways that won't allow us to do that, original endowment of the university that can't be spent or earnings on endowments who use is restricted. We're not allowed to take the existing university endowment to boost financial aid if it was donated to fund an endowed chair."</p>

<p>Colleges</a> Fight Calls to Dip Further Into Endowments : NPR</p>

<p>That is why endowment per student is not useful if you don't know the how many sub funds are out there and how they are being utilized.</p>

15

<p>
[quote]
Due to their wealth, HYPS will weather the storm and can afford the (albeit painful) losses. The lesser privates who tried to copy their investment strategies by exposing themselves to "alternative" assets are in a lot of trouble.

[/quote]

Which ones, in particular, are hurting?</p>

16

<p>Well, Brandeis comes to mind. Also Duke, Columbia, Northwestern and the like.</p>

<p>Another question is how much in private bonding have some of these schools done. I know of at least two publics that have the authority to issue their own bonds and been on massive (Billion level) building sprees using bond money that they expected to pay back with growth in their endowment. Now they are stuck with much reduced endowments (possibly 50% in both cases as they where heavy investors in alt investments) and they are on the hook for millions in annual debt paymnets that they don' get from the state government. The combination might tie their hands as to much other spending from the endowment.</p>

17

<p>"That is why endowment per student is not useful if you don't know the how many sub funds are out there and how they are being utilized."</p>

<p>Actually, everything that you cited also applies to why total endowment is not useful. I don't see anything that relates specifically to endowment per student in what you wrote at all.</p>

18

<p>I'm curious, which publics are those barrons?</p>

19

<p>You'll find both mentioned in here.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/31/realestate/commercial/31michigan.html?n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/Organizations/U/University%20of%20Michigan%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/31/realestate/commercial/31michigan.html?n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/Organizations/U/University%20of%20Michigan&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

20

<p>The other possible distortion in per-student spending could occur among institutions with teaching hospitals. Some schools count their residents (that is, medical residents) as students; others may not. At large schools, the classification of visiting scholars may also make a difference. They may be counted as students on some campuses (just because they need an affiliation with the university-they aren't employees, but they aren't students in the way we're thinking).</p>