<p>Is the new figure for the Harvard endowment, up from close to $30B the year before.</p>
<p>To put this in perspective, just the INCREASE in Harvard's endowment over the past year is larger than the ENTIRE endowments of all but six or seven universities in the entire world.</p>
<p>Taking last year's official figures, Harvard had an endowment of about $1,500,000 <em>per student</em>, making it one of the wealthiest universities in the world. I believe that only Yale and Princeton had more (close to $1,800,000-$1,900,000 per student, each).</p>
<p>It's no wonder that the top schools are getting increasingly selective, given that the gap between the ultra-rich universities and the merely wealthy universities grows larger every year, and translates directly into the experience of a typical student. I mean, these top schools have more than 10 times the money per student as other schools that are just a couple notches down on the USNWR list, including other Ivies.</p>
<p>Mmm... I bet they have a secret vault somewhere where a big conspiracy group dating back from the time of Christ will kill anyone who tries to find out about it with their black helicopters and former military mercenaries...</p>
<p>Not likely, considering that Yale's endowment has been growing so much faster than Harvard's (averaged out over the past 10 years) that it will soon be larger.</p>
<p>yale's going to have a hard time beating H on returns this year, though. Last year, when Yale had an 18% increase, it was heralded as a miracle (and it was indeed a great amount). But H had 23% this year, a tough number to match.</p>
<p>mr_sanguine:
never underestimate David Swensen. And a lot depends on how well the market did in the past year. Since Harvard's endowment grew by more this year than it did last year, it's likely that Yale's did as well.</p>
<p>Yale outsources most of the decisions behind its investments while Harvard still handles those decisions in-house, I believe. When Yale's tremendous return on investments was disclosed last year it was seen as an indication of the superiority of outsourcing investment directives, but it seems this year the trend has reversed.</p>
<p>Actually, Yale's endowment has had returns of upwards of 40% in past years, so 23% is hardly impressive at all. In 2002, when global stock, bond and commodity markets tanked, every single endowment in the country, including Harvard's, took a significant dive. Except Yale's, which astonishingly showed a return for the year. How they did that has never really been figured out. Maybe it has to do with Connecticut being the world's hedge fund capital. Historically speaking, Yale has consistently beaten Harvard's returns, as well as everyone else's.</p>
<p>"For years under Jack R. Meyer, Harvard turned in strong performances, eclipsed only by Yale, under David Swensen."</p>
<p>"Several specialists involved in the endowment world said that although Harvards figures were very good, they were perhaps not as stellar as what Yale is expected to report next month." </p>
<p>"Though few universities have reported, last week the University of Virginia said its endowment had returned 25.2 percent. That endowment has a value of $880 million."</p>
<p>i'd like to see proof that Yale outsources its investment decisions. are you claiming that Yale's money managers are not the ones managing the endowment? </p>
<p>i'd expect Y's return to be somewhere in the low 20s, slightly above or below Harvard's.</p>
<p>posterX, where have you seen data reporting a 40% return?</p>
<p>I was referring specifically to 2000, when Yale's endowment grew by an impressive 41% (Harvard's grew by only 32% that year). However, as I indicated above, you can pick just about any year, or period of the past 5, 10, or 15 years and you'll see that Yale's returns have consistently and significantly outclassed every other institutional investor in the United States, including the other Ivy League schools regardless of whether or not they had smaller or larger funds to manage. Of course, returns over a period of several years are much more important than just the figures from a single year. Endowments outside of the very top universities sometimes have huge returns one year, then huge losses the next.</p>
<p>Anyhow, Yale's record is why both Wharton and Harvard Business School, among others, write their official instructional "Case Studies" about the Yale Investments Office, whose money is neither "outsourced" nor entirely managed from within, rather than writing about some other office.</p>
<p>Gadad, Yale's endowment is more like 2/3rds the size of Harvard's, and when you consider student enrollments, Yale (as well as Princeton) have hundreds of thousands of dollars more money per student than Harvard. Of course, Harvard is still heads and shoulders above pretty much everyone else besides YP in terms of $$$ per student, and $35 BILLION is nothing to sneeze at. That goes back to the point I made above about why HYP's entering classes are increasingly getting more and more selective relative to those of any other college.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Actually, Yale's endowment has had returns of upwards of 40% in past years, so 23% is hardly impressive at all. In 2002, when global stock, bond and commodity markets tanked, every single endowment in the country, including Harvard's, took a significant dive. Except Yale's, which astonishingly showed a return for the year. How they did that has never really been figured out. Maybe it has to do with Connecticut being the world's hedge fund capital. Historically speaking, Yale has consistently beaten Harvard's returns, as well as everyone else's.