30 Wealthiest Universities

College Search & Selection
21

<p>
[quote]
BTW, I believe that the Williams table was accurate in its omission of Olin, given the date it was prepared.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>May have accurate that year, but still not complete. Rockefeller beats all those universities hands-down, even in 2003. Granted, it's not going to be what most CC students are looking into, but my point is that the list Coolidge developed was specific, not complete. If you're going to measure the wealthiest universities this way (the merits of which are a different argument), the list is as follows (for the year you are focussing on, 2003):</p>

<ol>
<li> Rockefeller</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Princeton Theological Seminary</li>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li> Yale</li>
<li>Grinnell</li>
<li> Marine Biological Lab</li>
<li>Curtis Institute of Music</li>
<li> Bryn Athyn College</li>
<li> Webb Institute</li>
<li> Pomona</li>
<li> Rice</li>
<li> Baylor College of Medicine</li>
<li> Swarthmore</li>
</ol>

<p>2004 is a little different, not by much. Olin makes the top ten.</p>

<p>mini, thanks for mentioning Berea! It deserves recognition for spending its institutional wealth in some very meaningful ways.</p>

22

<p>Unfortuantely, I think the intricacies of university finances are so complicated that it is difficult to compare them meaningfully in this way. Many universities are very reluctant to spend any endowment money on capital projects. So this is one item that endowment affects only indirectly (most are happy to use endowment money on maintenance, esp if the donor for the capital project also endowed the maintenance costs). On the other hand, what gets classified as "instructional expenses" varies widely even among seemingly similar universities. So it is not really an informative comparison. At best, it tells you how the hundreds, at least, of decisions about how to account for expenses were made at each school. It may depend on whether there is one undergrad entity, or a series of separate schools. If separate, how separate are they? At some places there are actual cash payments from one undergrad school to another when students take courses outside of their schools. These show up as income and expense, although the net effect on the university is zero.</p>

<p>If you look at the numbers, it becomes hard to reconcile the large reported differences in expenditures with very similar educational experiences. This does not mean that the high spending places are wasting money, or that the low spending places are unusually efficient. It means that the numbers are not really comparable. </p>

<p>As a very simple example. Princeton supports most of its financial aid budget from endowment. Penn finances most of its financial aid from operating income. Penn has less generous financial aid terms - because it cannot afford to match Princeton- but not because the money comes from operating income. If Penn had the money, it could still use operating income for financial aid, and spend more endowment money on something else. Penn has a higher percent of students with Pell grants and more diversity. So... which school is making better use of its money? Which is more efficient? Princeton has more money, and a slightly better reputation, but it is unclear that the students benefit from this higher expenditure in any clear way. I am sure the Penn trustees would love to swap endowments, and the Princeton trustees would not, but this is not much of a basis for choosing a college.</p>

23

<p>Where is UW-Madison and UIUC on the list? Both these universities have definitely close to a 1.5 billion dollars endowment for all there departments.</p>

24

<p>I did some statistical analysis to study the relationship between financial factors, enrollment factors, and quality factors. The numbers are for the list of 30 wealthiest universities. The correlations do imply causal relationships.</p>

<p>correlations between .2 and .4 are low
between .4 and .6 are moderate
between .6 and .8 are very high
between .8 and 1 are near perfect</p>

<p>financial factors:
total endowment
endowment per student (total endow divided by total enrollment)
endowment per undergrad (total endowment/ug enrollment)
instructional expenses (IPEDS)
instructional support expenses (IPEDS)
percent of undergrads getting university grants (IPEDS)</p>

<p>quality factors:
reputation score (US News)
graduation rate (US News)
SAT 75th percentile (US News)</p>

<p>enrollment numbers:
total enrollment
undergrad enrollment
percent undergrads</p>

<p>all the correlations were statistically significant
Here is what I found:
(1) As endowment per undergrad increases, SAT increases. very high corr=.75 The corrs were lower between SAT and endow/total (.70) and absolute endowment (.55)
(2) As endowment per undergrad increases, grad rate increases (.52)
with raw endowment dollars the correlation was lower (.40)
(3) As endowment per undergrad increases, US News reputation scores increase (.59) with raw endowment dollars the corr is lower (.51)
(4) As undergrad enrollment increases, instructional expenses per student decreases (-.57). This is the "economy of scale" factor.
(5) Instructional support expenses are more closely related to endowment than instructional expenses. .56
(6) The correlation between SAT and graduation rate was very high .85
SAT and reputation correlation was also high .72
(7) As the percent of students receiving institutional grants increased, the graduation rate increased .48 and SAT increased .60
(8) As instructional expenses increased, grad rate increased .41 and SAT increased .50 </p>

<p>I know this is heavy reading, but maybe some of you will find it interesting.</p>

25

<p>Wisconsin has a total of about $4 Billion in endowment assets. Most are held outside the UW legally to keep them safe from state control.</p>

26

<p>BTW, the endowment number for UVa is incorrect. It's now over $3.2 billion.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.cavalierdaily.com/CVArticle.asp?ID=25523&pid=1381%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.cavalierdaily.com/CVArticle.asp?ID=25523&pid=1381&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

27

<p>Like 12 years ago, anyone could of gone to WashU; same acceptance rate as SLU.</p>

<p>What the hell happen, they just skyrocketed within a couple years.</p>

<p>
[QUOTE]

Where is UW-Madison and UIUC on the list? Both these universities have definitely close to a 1.5 billion dollars endowment for all there departments.

[/QUOTE]
</p>

<p>Not really. UIUC/UIC/UIS have a combined endowment of 1.5 Billion and UW system combined is that much as well.</p>

28

<p>It's called "marketing".</p>

29

<p>I guess the whole "flood people with crap and make them apply/reject them in return" works.</p>

30

<p>The Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation holds nearly $2 Billion that is used to benefit the UW. It is not included in the reported amounts because it is legally a separate private organization. That plus the $1.5 Billion held by the UW Foundation and UW System brings the total to around $3.5 Billion for UW Madison. Not great but not bad either.</p>

31

<p>Copy the following link into your browser's address window.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.nacubo.org/documents/about/FY05NESInstitutionsbyTotalAssets.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nacubo.org/documents/about/FY05NESInstitutionsbyTotalAssets.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

32

<p>Globalist, the figure I posted initially was the correct figure at the time. The new endowments for the year 2005 just came out about 6 weeks ago, well after I posted the thread. The new top 30 is pretty much the same. It is pretty amazing to see how universities have changed over the years. In parentheses, I include the endowment rank of that university in 1990, the $ value of that university's endowment in 1990 and the % by which it expanded over the last 15 years):</p>

<h1>1 Harvard University: $25,500,000,000 (#1, $5.1 Billion, 500% increase)</h1>

<h1>2 Yale University: $15,200,000,000 (#3, $2.8 Billion, 540% increase)</h1>

<h1>3 Stanford University: $12,200,000,000 (#4, $2.4 Billion, 500% increase)</h1>

<h1>4 Princeton University: $11,200,000,000 (#2, $3 Billion, 370% increase)</h1>

<h1>5 Massachusetts Inst. of Tech.: $6,700,000,000 (#7, $1.6 Billion, 420% increase)</h1>

<h1>6 Columbia University: $5,200,000,000 (#5, $1.7 Billion, 300% increase)</h1>

<h1>7 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor: $4,900,000,000 (#22, $500 Million, 1,000% increase)</h1>

<h1>8 Emory University $4,400,000,000 (#6, $1.7 Billion, 260% increase)</h1>

<h1>8 University of Pennsylvania: $4,400,000,000 (#14, $1 billion, 440% increase)</h1>

<h1>10 University of Texas-Austin: $4,300,000,000 (#10, $1.3 billion, 330% increase)</h1>

<h1>10 Washington University: $4,300,000,000 (#8, $1.5 Billion, 300% increase)</h1>

<h1>12 Northwestern University: $4,200,000,000 (#11, $1.2 Billion, 350% increase)</h1>

<h1>13 University of Chicago: $4,100,000,000 (#12, $1.1 Billion, 370% increase)</h1>

<h1>14 Cornell University: $3,800,000,000 (#12, $1.1 Billion, 350% increase)</h1>

<h1>14 Duke University: $3,800,000,000 (#22, $500 million, 760% increase)</h1>

<h1>16 University of Notre Dame: $3,700,000,000 (#16, $700 million, 520% increase)</h1>

<h1>17 Rice University: $3,600,000,000 (#10, $1.3 Billion, 280% increase)</h1>

<h1>17 Texas A&M University: $3,600,000,000 (#14, $1 Billion, 360% increase)</h1>

<h1>19 University of Virginia: $3,200,000,000 (#22, $500 million, 640% increase)</h1>

<h1>20 University of Southern California: $2,700,000,000 (#22, $500 million, 540% increase)</h1>

<h1>21 Dartmouth College: $2,700,000,000 (#18, $600 million, 450% increase)</h1>

<h1>22 Vanderbilt University: $2,600,000,000 (#18, $600 million, 430% increase)</h1>

<h1>23 Johns Hopkins University: $2,100,000,000 (#18, $600 million, 350% increase)</h1>

<h1>24 University of California-Berkeley: $2,000,000,000 (#29, $450 million, 440% increase)</h1>

<h1>24 University of Minnesota-Twin Cities: $2,000,000,000 (#29, $450 million, 440% increase)</h1>

<h1>25 Brown University: $1,800,000,000 (#22, $500 million, 360% increase)</h1>

<h1>26 Ohio State University: $1,700,000,000 (N/A)</h1>

<h1>27 Rockefeller University: $1,600,000,000 (#22, $500 million, 310% increase)</h1>

<h1>28 Case Western Reserve University: $1,500,000,000 (#22, $500 million, 300% increase)</h1>

<h1>28 New York University: $1,500,000,000 (#18, $600 million, 250% increase)</h1>

<h1>28 University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill: $1,500,000,000 (N/A)</h1>

<h1>28 University of Pittsburgh: $1,500,000,000 (N/A)</h1>

<h1>28 University of Washington: $1,500,000,000 (N/A)</h1>

33

<p>Case's endowment is very impressive considering its undergrad enrollment is under 3500.</p>

34

<p>All that money and Northwestern has to heat our dorms with "humidity". Lol.</p>

35

<p>Stanford just surpassed Princeton--impressive considering how young the school is. Mich has had great leap forward!</p>

<p>Alexandre,
Do you know if Harvard's endowment includes the property value of its campus? I thought I read somewhere it does while Stanford's number doesn't (Stanford owns over 8000 acres of land).</p>

36

<p>" Only a tiny fraction of a university's endowment is used for student benefits"
I would think that highly depends on the university(research or teaching/learning oriented).</p>

37

<p>it's amazing to me how little people understand what endowment is and how it is used--including a moderator on this forum.</p>

<p>the easiest way to understand it is as a large sum of money that a school invests with hopes of earning a return that is larger than the initial investment. some of this return is then used to fund programs. by using endowment this way, it ensures that these programs will always be funded as long as the endowment exists.</p>

<p>this way of funding is used to secure programs that need to be stable over time--this includes financial aid, professor salaries, etc (all things that directly benefit students).</p>

<p>it is not the way you fund things like new buildings and other capital projects.</p>

38

<p>Actually dcircle, endowments are not really used at all. In general, universities spend anywhere between 3% and 6% of their endowment on an annual basis, which in the case of most universities, is only a fraction of their total annual operating budget. For example, Penn's endowment is roughly $4 billion. Of that, it uses $200 million annually. But Penn's operating budget is well over $2 billion annually. </p>

<p>At any rate, how universities use their endowment is up to them. Michigan for example, funded their Life Sciences initiative (a $400 million, 6-year project to revitalize the sciences at the University of Michigan) entirely with money from its endowment. That includes the building of major facilities. The new Ross Business school building is also going to be built using money from the endowment. In the Case of the Ross school, $70 million will come from Ross' $100 million gift and the remaining $70 million will be used from the university's endowment. In other words, endowment money is certainly used to fund large proects, including the building of major facilities.</p>

39

<p>That's because Penn's per student endowment is not that large - about $170,000 per student.</p>

<p>Figuring an average rate of spending of 4.5% per year, that's only throwing off $7,700 per student per year. Of course, the real figures are likely much higher per grad student and much lower per undergrad.</p>

<p>Nearby Swarthmore has a per student endowment of $787,000 per student. The endowment spending accounts for nearly $30,000 of the $68,000 per student operating budget (net of financial aid). In effect, this is a $30,000 merit scholarship for each of the 1474 students. Princeton, Harvard, and Yale have even larger per student endowments although the impact on undergrads is not as easily identified in all cases.</p>

<p>I don't think we can look at public school endowments and private school endowments in exactly the same way because public schools have an additional revenue stream - state appropriations.</p>

40

<p>That's true interresteddad. Endowment per student is also very important and schools with large graduate student populations tend to use more of their endowments to support the graduate programs. </p>

<p>However, the size of the endowment is also important. Michigan is going to build a new $140 million Business school building and has spend over $400 million on the life sciences over the last 5 or 6 years. Those projects will benefit undergrads a great deal. They will add teaching faculties that will teach both graduate and undergraduate students, they will creat research opportunities for undergrads and they will provide undergrads with world-class facilities and professional recruitment opportunities. Only a university with an endowment of over $3 billion could afford those types of projects. Swarthmore could never afford it.</p>