@Publisher For the college/university EPS figures, is the endowment the total institutional endowment and the number of students all the students including undergrad and grad? (I could probably reverse engineer your data, but I’m feeling lazy.)
Since the NACUBO pages are down, I used collegeraptor which does not specify whether or not graduate students were included.
Based on the Harvard number it included graduate students. Harvards endowment is nearly 37B and there are nearly 7,000 undergraduate students and around 15,000 graduate students.
Those numbers look like total number of students (undergrad + grad and professional) were included in the calculation. You can see this easily with Harvard’s number, which if based only on undergrad would imply an endowment of about 30% of its actual endowment.
By the way, net undergrad tuition received (after financial aid credits) at Harvard is significantly less than 3% of Harvard’s overall revenue, and probably less than 10-15% of operating expenses allocable to undergrad education. See p.16 of the pdf here: https://finance.harvard.edu/files/fad/files/final_harvard_university_financial_report_2017.pdf
Harvard is basically a giant hedge fund. I was told by someone in a position to know (portfolio manager at HMC) that the top 5 -10 people at the endowment fund collectively earn a bit more than the 500 professors at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences per year. This was almost 10 years ago - they probably make a lot more now!
Some additional boarding schools’ EPS (endowment per student);
Thacher School–$526,923
St. Mark’s School–$389,502
St. George’s School–$372,000
Miss Porter’s School–$361,022
Cate School–$333,333
Berkshire–$302,440
Emma Willard–$259,777
Baylor–$248,566
Westminster (Ct.)–$243,590
Northfield Mount Herman (NMH)–$213,846
Brooks School–$202,279
Blair Academy–$191,304
Governor’s–$187,500
Asheville School–$178,182
Kent School–$152,632
Concord Academy–$146,597
Wyoming Seminary–$131,004
Portsmouth Abbey–$122,222
Tabor Academy–$85,603
Thanks all for clarifying the college numbers; while interesting, the BS data is less relevant to us than the college data 
(Although I am still curious about BS FA$/student.)
Also interesting is that the EPS for colleges doesn’t seem to correlate to either acceptance rates or USNWR rankings. We’re looking at all of these figures as we compile the preliminary list, but take all of them with a large grain of salt; I think apples to apples comparisons are hard to make across different college types, sizes, locations and program offerings. Plus my kid is starting to define some clear preferences that will take precedence over what mom and dad have to say about the data.
I was surprised to see Michigan missing from the list as its $10.9B endowment ranks it ninth in the country, but its 63,000 students dilute the EPS quite a bit. 
@ChoatieMom: The University of Michigan has a 2017 endowment of $10.9 Billion which ranks it ninth in the country if you include the two Texas systems (University of Texas system combines 8 universities & 6 health institutes to make up its system endowment & the Texas A&M system endowment is comprised of 11 universities and 6 state agencies plus more). The University of Michigan-Ann Arbor had a total of 62,183 students enrolled in 2017. The endowment per student (EPS) for Michigan-Ann Arbor is a healthy $175,289.
The 10 largest university endowments for 2017:
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Harvard University–$36 Billion
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Yale University–$27.2 Billion
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University of Texas System–$26.5 Billion
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Stanford University–$24.8 Billion
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Princeton University–$23.8 Billion
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Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)–$15 Billion
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University of Pennsylvania–$12.2 Billion
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Texas A&M System–$11.6 Billion
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University of Michigan–$10.9 Billion
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Northwestern University–$10.4 Billion
University of Michigan–Ann Arbor EPS of $175,289 would place it in the top 100 schools (#92) for Endowment Per Student.
By way of comparison: Penn State University main campus has an EPS of $48,940.
Random selection of school EPS:
Rhodes College–$154,304
Johns Hopkins University–$147,620
Brandeis–$149,915
Skidmore College–#129,501
Villanova University–$58,064
University of Southern California (USC–the West Coast one)–$131,535
Southern Methodist University (SMU)–$155,169
Bates College–$145,927
You guys have forgotten about the big kahuna of endowments: Milton Hershey School. $12.5B (2016) endowment, or about $6.25M per student. Not bad work if you can get it I say!
Realty trying to understand what the point of this thread is. Does it have a point?
The point for me is to marvel at the massive misallocation of capital that has been engendered in our crazy system. I am of course in the minority, especially on here, but I firmly believe that as a society we waste entirely too much money on formal education. The system is misaligned from the top to the bottom.
The Milton Hershey School in Pennsylvania, a boarding school with a massive endowment, and the Kamchamcha Schools in Hawaii, day schools with a massive endowment nearing $10 billion, often get overlooked.
Typically, among day schools, Atlanta’s Westminster Schools is considered to have the largest endowment at about $274 million similar to the Punahua School in Hawaii.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
I kinda agree.
For the moment, at least, I would kindly ask that discussion of university endowments be discussed on a separate thread (if at all).
The point of this thread is to be a resource for those interested.
@SatchelSF: Great catch with MHS. Also, if there is going to be a “massive misallocation of capital”, why not on education ?
@Publisher - I think maybe it’s worse if education expenditures are misallocated than in other areas, because education is so essential. I feel like a society has an upper limit on what it will spend in any identifiable area. That most education dollars are simply wasted is thus a tragedy. Isn’t that what Bastiat taught us, that the true costs of any economic choice are mostly unseen? http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html
As an example of a financial aid policy by a very wealthy prep boarding school:
St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire is #3 in terms of endowment funds ($602 million) & #1 for EPS (endowment per student) at $1,400,000 EPS.
St. Paul’s School financial aid policy from the SPS website:
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Families with incomes of $125,000 or less will get full financial aid;
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Families with incomes under $250,000 will pay no more than 10% of their income toward “tuition” (“tuition” includes room & board);
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Will meet full (100%) of demonstrated need;
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All financial aid will be in the form of grants (no loans);
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Needs blind admissions.
Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire awards full financial aid to admitted students from families making less than $75,000 per year.
Phillips Academy at Andover offers needs blind admissions decisions & does not consider home equity up to $650,000. Also, meets 100% of demonstrated need.
Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts meets 100% of demonstrated financial need & its website offers a chart of typical family contributions based on household income.
The problem with this is that the middle class is, once again, screwed. If you are responsible and dont have expensive cars or homes and have saved you get nothing. Because you are supposed to deplete your savings. If you are poor or irresponsible or the numbers work you are golden.
@Center: You may be correct with respect to some schools, but certainly not for St. Paul’s School unless you think that a household income of less than $250,000 is below “middle class”.