2018 COLLEGE ENDOWMENTS (Top 31 schools plus undergraduate enrollment figures)

College Search & Selection
1

During the first quarter of 2019, the NACUBO (National Association of College & University Business Officers) released data updating US college & university endowments for the fiscal year ending in 2018.

The following list reveals the top 31 schools by size of endowment followed by undergraduate enrollment:

  1. Harvard $38.3 billion. (9,965 total # of students of which approximately 6,764 are undergraduates.)

  2. University of Texas System–$30.9 billion. (About 38,000 full time undergraduates at the Austin campus.)

  3. Yale University–$29.4 billion. (About 5,743 undergrads.)

  4. Stanford University–$26.5 billion. (About 7,061 undergrads.)

  5. Princeton University–$25.9 billion. (About 5,260 full time undergraduates.)

  6. MIT–$16.5 billion. (4,510 undergrads)

  7. University of Pennsylvania–$13.8 billion. (9,800 undergraduates.)

  8. Texas A&M System & Foundation–$13.5 billion. (About 47,000 undergraduates at the College Station campus.)

  9. Univ. of Michigan–$11.9 billion. ( About 28,700 undergrads at Ann Arbor campus.)

  10. Northwestern University–$11.1 billion. (Between 8,200 and 8,700 undergraduates.)

2

  1. Univ. of California–$11.0 billion (About 29.400 undergrads at the Berkeley campus.)

  2. Columbia University–$10.9 billion. (8,170 total #of students including about 6,162 undergrads.)

  3. Notre Dame–$10.7 billion. (8,576 undergrads.)

  4. Duke University–$8.5 billion. (About 6,700 undergrads.)

  5. University of Chicago–$7.9 billion. (6,310).

  6. WashUStL–$7.6 billion. (About 7,000 undergrads.)

  7. Emory University–$7.3 billion. (About 6,900 undergrads.)

  8. Cornell University–$7.2 billion. (14,907 undergrads.)

  9. University of Virginia–$7.0 billion. (About 16,650 undergrads,)

  10. Rice University–$6.3 billion. (About 4,000 undergrads.)

3

  1. USC–$5.5 billion. (About 19,170 undergrads.)

  2. Dartmouth College–$5.5 billion. ( 4,400 undergrads.)

  3. Ohio State Univ.–$5.2 billion. (About 42,000 fulltime undergrads at the Columbus campus.)

  4. Vanderbilt University–$4.6 billion. (About 6,880 undergrads.)

  5. Johns Hopkins University–$4.3 billion. (About 5,600 fulltime undergraduate students.)

  6. NYU–$4.3 billion. (About 26,000 undergrads.)

  7. Penn State–$4.3 billion. ( About 40,000 fulltime undergrads at University Park campus.)

  8. Univ. of Pittsburgh–$4.2 billion. (About 18,400 fulltime undergrads,)

  9. Univ. of Minnesota–$3.7 billion.(About 30,000 fulltime u/g at Twin Cities / Minneapolis campus.)

  10. Brown University–$3.6 billion. (About 6,700 fulltime undergrads.)

  11. UNC–$3.4 billion. ( About 18,350 fulltime u/g at Chapel Hill campus.)

4

The Top 20 Private School Endowments (2018 fiscal year):

  1. Harvard–$38.3

  2. Yale–$29.4

  3. Stanford–$26.5

  4. Princeton–$25.9

  5. MIT–$16.5

  6. UPenn–$13.8

  7. Northwestern–$11.1

  8. Columbia–$10.9

  9. Notre Dame–$10.7

  10. Duke–$8.5

  11. Chicago–$7.9

  12. WashUStL–$7.6

  13. Emory–$7.3

  14. Cornell–$7.2

  15. Rice–$6.3

  16. USC–$5.5

  17. Dartmouth College–$5.5

  18. Vanderbilt–$4.6

  19. Johns Hopkins–$4.3

  20. NYU–$4.3

  21. Brown–$3.6

5

Top 10 Public University Endowments (fiscal year 2018):

  1. Univ. of Texas System–$30.9

  2. Texas A&M System & Foundation–$13.5

  3. Univ. of Michigan–$11.9

  4. University of California–$11

  5. Virginia–$7.0

  6. Ohio State–$5.2

  7. Penn State–$4.3

  8. Univ. of Pittsburgh–$4.2

  9. Univ. of Minnesota–$3.7

  10. UNC–$3.4

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Here’s a listing by total endowment (2007-2018) followed by **endowment per student/b:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universities_in_the_United_States_by_endowment

EPS rank for 2019 (without raw endowment and enrollment numbers):
https://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/college-rankings/details/EndowmentPerStudent

EPS (with raw endowment and enrollment numbers), 2017:
http://www.reachhighscholars.org/college_endowments.html

IPEDS has lots of searchable financial data. For example, here are some 2017 numbers for instructional expenses per student:
$114,844 Stanford
$ 89,151 UChicago
$ 43,823 Harvard
$ 38,706 Pomona
$ 28,773 Amherst
$ 26,696 Grinnell
$ 20,030 UC-Berkeley
$ 14,948 UM-CP
$ 14,734 UI-UC

I don’t know how confident we can be that every school counts these numbers the same way. It’s probably safe to assume there are significant variations in how colleges spend their endowment money (on what, and how effectively). But I think it would be hard to compile well-controlled, apples-to-apples comparisons. The LAC expenditures for example wouldn’t be driven up by the high instructional costs of professional schools (med/law/business). Public universities get income not only from endowment earnings but also from the states. Etc. Etc.

7

@tk21769 : Thank you for posting the above links & data.

Do you have the numbers for instructional expenses per student at: MIT, Northwestern, Columbia, Princeton, Duke, Vanderbilt, Dartmouth, Williams College & Bowdoin College ?

P.S. Yale & NYU as well ?

8

Expanded list of 2017 numbers for instructional expenses per student:

$114,844 Stanford
$114,770 Yale
$ 89,742 Columbia
$ 89,151 UChicago
$ 77,686 MIT
$ 70,127 Duke
$ 55,658 Princeton
$ 47,340 Williams
$ 44,763 Northwestern
$ 43,823 Harvard
$ 38,706 Pomona
$ 32,176 Vanderbilt
$ 30,990 Bowdoin
$ 30,614 NYU
$ 29,248 Dartmouth
$ 28,773 Amherst
$ 26,696 Grinnell
$ 20,030 UC-Berkeley
$ 14,948 UM-CP
$ 14,734 UI-UC

Source:
https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/use-the-data
Instructions:

  1. Click “Compare Institutions”
  2. Select Institutions
  3. Hit “continue”, then select variables
    (Frequently used/derived variables > Financial indicators > Core expenses per FTE enrollment, by function )
  4. Select Year
  5. Select “Instruction expenses per FTE (GASB)” and “Instruction expenses per FTE (FASB)” if you want to compare both public and private schools

Again, I caution that the above numbers don’t necessarily give us a fair, apples-to-apples comparison (esp. if we’re trying to compare very different kinds of schools). Even among similar schools, I doubt Columbia is delivering 2X the undergraduate instructional quality as Harvard (or spending ~double on similar things). I’d love to see a clear, detailed, unbiased explanation for these differences.

9

The “instructional expenses” number is probably quite useless as it looks like the colleges bucket expenses in all sort of different ways so not apples to apples.

10

More 2017 numbers for instructional expenses per student:

$118,824 WUSTL

$ 98,888 Caltech

$ 52,333 UPenn
$ 34,733 Brown
$ 34,281 Swarthmore
$ 33,411 Hamilton
$ 32,874 Carnegie Mellon
$ 31,359 URochester
$ 30,793 Georgetown
$ 30,002 Carleton

$ 29,979 Case Western
$ 29,285 Cornell University
$ 27,002 Haverford
$ 26,315 Colorado College
$ 25,525 Tulane
$ 24,475 Earlham
$ 24,171 Reed
$ 22,559 Bates
$ 20,227 Macalester

$ 19,560 Connecticut College
$ 18,333 Dickinson
$ 17,917 Agnes Scott
$ 16,342 Mills
$ 15,510 Villanova
$ 14,241 Beloit
$ 14,256 New College of Florida
$ 14,036 Knox College
$ 13,817 Ursinus
$ 13,779 University of Iowa
$ 12,471 Loyola U Maryland
$ 12,399 SUNY New Paltz
$ 10,894 University of Alabama

$ 8,590 Robert Morris University
$ 8,321 Frostburg State
$ 7,537 Prairie View A&M
$ 4,269 Regent University
$ 2,832 Liberty University

11

Publisher, since graduate students drain a university of its resources more than undergraduate students, I think it makes sense to include the entire student body, not just undergraduate students.

tk, instructional expenses is not a very reliable metric because each university measures it differently, and it does not factor in economies of scale or cost of living. UCLA’s instructional expenses is an impressive $49,379 per student, which is almost double that of Dartmouth’s, 50% greater than Brown’s and roughly equal to Princeton’s. Can we draw any conclusions from such a comparison?

12

@Alexandre: With respect to whether both undergrads & graduate students should be included, you make a great point & I wish that I had included both numbers. I choose to include just the # of undergraduates because this website is primarily focused on undergraduate students & schools & I thought readers might like to know the size of the schools’ undergraduate populations in relation to one another.

13

Full Professor Salaries, 2017-201 8
Source: https://data.chronicle.com/category/sector/1/faculty-salaries/

$244,530 Stanford
$239,787 UChicago
$226,394 Harvard
$223,427 Columbia
$222,819 MIT
$217,411 UPenn
$214,575 Yale
$213,769 Princeton
$208,766 Northwestern
$203,899 Georgetown
$202,821 Caltech

$195,887 WUSTL
$194,531 Duke
$188,233 UC Berkeley
$188,163 Dartmouth
$188,019 Vanderbilt

$181,173 Brown
$175,682 Cornell
$163,548 URochester
$160,803 Carnegie Mellon
$156,506 Pomona
$155,840 UM-CP
$154,033 Amherst

$146,788 Tulane
$146,393 UI-UC
$144,854 Williams
$142,913 Hamilton
$140,508 Villanova
$137,518 Grinnell
$135,662 Colorado College
$132,484 Carleton
$124,219 Macalester
$120,379 Haverford
$112,379 Reed

$98,898 Prairie View A&M
$98,600 Ursinus
$96,767 Agnes Scott
$93,372 Regent University
$82,888 Frostburg State
$82,347 Liberty University

14

Now were talkin’ !

15

@tk21769 skips over some schools for some reason. Here’s the full list down to the last constituent of an Ivy and first LAC (Barnard) and first LAC after that (CMC)

$244,530 Stanford
$239,787 UChicago
$226,394 Harvard
$223,427 Columbia
$222,819 MIT
$217,411 UPenn
$214,575 Yale
$213,769 Princeton
$208,766 Northwestern
$203,899 Georgetown
$202,821 Caltech
$201,328 UCLA
$199,416 NYU
$195,887 WUSTL
$194,531 Duke
$194,531 Rice
$188,233 UC Berkeley
$188,163 Dartmouth
$188,019 Vanderbilt
$187,454 Babson
$182,904 BC
$181,568 BU
$181,173 Brown
$180,896 ND
$180,354 USC
$178,440 GWU
$178,388 NEU
$175,682 Cornell
$175,596 UCSB
$174,940 Teachers College at Columbia University
$173,155 Emory
$171,920 Bentley
$171,037 UCI
$170,715 UVa
$169,936 Fordham
$169,386 UMich
$168,832 Barnard
$168,331 UCSD
$166,141 NJIT
$165,711 CMC
$165,705 SMU
$165,467 American
$164,067 UT-Dallas
$163,795 Rutgers
$163,548 Rochester
$163,409 JHU

OK, I kept going to JHU.

16

^ Now adjust for cost of living :wink:

17

@JenniferClint, you’ll have to do that yourself in your head.

18

Wouldn’t per student endowment figures be more useful, at least for undergraduates?

19

@tk21769 @PurpleTitan I would question the source of the salaries. There are major discrepancies.

See JHU below which is actually amongst the top 15 in the country for full professor pay for 2018 to 2019.

https://www.insidehighered.com/aaup-compensation-survey?institution-name=johns+hopkins&professor-category=1591

These averages are reported by the schools themselves. Chronicle does not spell out how they get their data soruces.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/04/11/aaup-faculty-salaries-slightly-budgets-are-balanced-backs-adjuncts-and-out-state

Also JHU endowment is now in the 6.1 range after Bloomberg’s massive donation.

20

Looking at endowment amount normalized by student is also questionable given endowment amounts are earmarked for a variety of sources. They could be specifically earmarked for graduate research or students or untouchable emergency use funds (in the event of a natural catastrophe). A better option might entail university operating budgets specifically used on an annual basis for undergraduates. Similar to what @Alexandre was stating before, how can you look at endowments normalized by just undergrads when it is used for all students. It’s apples to oranges and makes no sense. Manipulating ambiguous data to fit a narrative is worse than showing no data. You’d learn this on day 1 at Bain & Co.

Bloomberg’s endowment donation to Hopkins is earmarked all for undergraduate Financial aid for instance. This likely makes JHU’s undergrad financial aid budget the highest if not amongst the highest in the country despite the relative lower endowment value on an absolute scale. Yet you can’t surmise this from looking at endowments in aggregate.