<p>Does anyone have current (ie, post June 30, 2007 data) for Columbia's endowment?</p>
<p>Columbia</a> University Statistical Abstract | Endowment
Also see List</a> of U.S. colleges and universities by endowment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</p>
<p>The 2007 figure is the most recent available. There is a lag time in the reporting - they like to say it takes a few months to count all of that money - so the 2007 figure was actually reported only within the past 5-6 months. FY07-08 figures won't be available until this fall.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The 2007 figure is the most recent available. There is a lag time in the reporting - they like to say it takes a few months to count all of that money - so the 2007 figure was actually reported only within the past 5-6 months. FY07-08 figures won't be available until this fall.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It's not that complicated. University fiscal years end on June 30, and that's the number that gets reported every year. It's an annual snapshot, not some time lagged report. </p>
<p>Columbia's numbers tend to come out later than other schools because Columbia is just slower than many schools in publishing it's annual financial report.</p>
<p>We're currently at $7.15 billion. This might be a helpful comparison List</a> of U.S. colleges and universities by endowment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</p>
<p>Basically, filthy rich by anyone's standard, except HYPS... boo them. Odd how they love advocating redistribution of other people's wealth, but not their own endowments....yay progressivism!</p>
<p>^your post is naive, univs even, and especially, the ones with the most assets are trying everything in their power to increase financial aid in the long term. the method to achieve this is increasing the size of the endowment and having a large endowment size in the first place. Sustainable growth implies that any university can only use approximately 5% of its endowment in a given year, the larger the endowment the greater that 5% is. If they were to use much more of it each year the endowment would shrink and eventually nothing will be left of it, then we'll really be saying "yay progressivism!".</p>
<p>Re your comment : "Sustainable growth implies that any university can only use approximately 5% of its endowment in a given year, the larger the endowment the greater that 5% is. If they were to use much more of it each year the endowment would shrink and eventually nothing will be left of it, then we'll really be saying "yay progressivism!"."</p>
<p>Try taking a few math and statistics courses before you blast other people's comments. For the past ten years, endowments have earned on average 15% per annum. If you spend 5%, you are left with a 10% increase. If you spend 10% you still have an increase of 5% etc. Your assertion that "sustainable growth" prevents universities from spending more than 5% in a year is inane. The 5% figure keeps popping up because of IRS regs pertaining to non-profit charitable foundations (Congress is now comparing colleges to these). Foundations are required to spend 5% per annum or face adverse tax consequences. Presently, colleges are not even required to spend this much ; but some are now raising their expenditures to about the 5% level because they fear that Congress will take away their tax exempt status. The 5% number you have heard about has nothing to do with "sustainable growth."</p>
<p>Also, do you have any idea of how much money 15% per annum on a $7 Billion endowment represents? It's over $1 BILLION a year. Do you know what it would cost to afford free tuition for all undergrads (say to 4,000 students)? Less than $150 MILLION. Despite this most if not all schools, fund their far more limited undergrad financial aid budget, in part, from general revenue sources, as opposed to funding it entirely from the endowmwnt. The largest single source of these general revenue sources is? Come on you know the answer, it's the tuition and fees of other students. </p>
<p>Who exactly is the naive one here?</p>
<p>^I criticized a post for being naive because it did not look at the long term interests of both the students and the university, their incentives allign.</p>
<p>I've taken several math and stat courses thank you very much, here's why you might not have:</p>
<p>"For the past ten years, endowments have earned on average 15% per annum."</p>
<p>it is more like 8-11% on average : - List</a> of U.S. colleges and universities by endowment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</p>
<p>9% vs 15% exponential growth is much more than just a rounding error.</p>
<p>on top of that schools benefit from having a larger endowment, larger endowments enrich a whole school, and a high level of growth is needed to remain competitive. </p>
<p>long term interests of keeping up with competition and improving services vs. current interests of higher spending. </p>
<p>To spend more than 5% would imply a growth rate that is too slow to keep up with peers, in a competitive world to not keep up but to still grow, is still - to lose. Perhaps it is a race to be thrifty, but it's one in which not competing will eventually lead to a worse education for students at your university. And univs obviously know better than to disregard short term interests, they're constantly pressured to spend more now afterall.</p>
<p>You seem to miss or disregard this delicate balance of long term vs short term interests.</p>
<p>also Fin Aid can always only be a small proportion of spending - what you're not going to keep up facilities? you're not going to expand so that you can educate more?</p>
<p>Tuition covers only a small fraction of the costs that universities spend on providing services to their students. Faculty, staff, facilities, administration, and all the academic / research expenses, it adds up very quickly.</p>
<p>Strictly from an investment perspective, double-digit returns cannot be "expected" and you shouldn't assume anything beyond the expansion rate of the equity markets, which historically has been 6-8% per year. And there are down years averaged in there. To take much more than 5% out each year risks having the real growth rate dip below inflation, meaning shrink. And university budgets and expenditures do not go down, it's not something like Citigroup who can just lay off 20,000 people. There is a lot of risk involved in that. I would not consider taking substantially more than 5% off each year (aside from one-off expenditures like the new campus) to be financially prudent.</p>
<p>there is a difference between professional money maqnagement and your private expectations. The 15% figure is an average over the last 10 years and includes negative returns at and around the millenium. Most years were FAR greater than 15%. And most businesses wont even consider an investment that is anticipated to return less than 15%. Get your facts straight. I simply dont understand why anyone would defend increases in tuition or any tuition at all when a school is earning a billion a year on its endowment. It should be obvious that at 5 % or less (which includes your amounts spent in excess of tuition, including rapidly increasing administrators salaries and benefits) schools are not doing enough to defray tuiion expenses. There is no justification whatsover for increasing tuition and fees at 4-5 % per year or for using one student's tuition to pay another's financial aid.</p>
<p>to confidential coll: The larger the endowmwnt the more professional the money management and the more and better the investment opportunities. Averages lie. I stand by my assessment at 15% for an endowmwnt of this size. If Col is not earning this they should fire their portfolio manager. The data for Columbia for the last decade should be available if you want to take the time to dig it out. I dont. The financial reporting by colleges is fairly sketchy and not what you could expect from a comparably sized for profit company.</p>
<p>And dont forget that Columbia is also contunually adding to its endowment through pervasive fund raising efforts. Why raise it if you're just going to horde it and arent going to use it?</p>
<p>And, if Col is like other schools with high endowments a good piece of their endowment is restricted to and can only be used for finaid due to donor requirements. The earnings on this restricted portion alone (not to mention the earnings on the unrestricted portion) are typically more than enough to fully fund their finaid budget, yet many insist on partially funding finaid through tuition and fees charged to students. Fair?</p>
<p><em>sigh</em> I hate having to do this.</p>
<p>Buddy, I'm a consultant to financial services firms and investment managers. I practically do benchmarking for a living. Although I don't believe any educational endowments are among our clients, I'm not an ignoramus. Neither are several of the other professionals on this board. You can stop taking such high-minded offense.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The 15% figure is an average over the last 10 years and includes negative returns at and around the millenium. Most years were FAR greater than 15%.
[/quote]
You have the burden of proof for such claims. Where is your data?</p>
<p>edit: Oh wait, you don't have any. You have conjecture and paranoia:
[quote]
I stand by **my assessment* at 15% for an endowmwnt of this size. If Col is not earning this they should fire their portfolio manager. The data for Columbia for the last decade should be available if you want to take the time to dig it out. I dont.*
[/quote]
So, to make up for your laziness, you just go attack anyone who disagrees with you. Solid debating technique.</p>
<p>
[quote]
And most businesses wont even consider an investment that is anticipated to return less than 15%. Get your facts straight.
[/quote]
Most investments businesses make are over multiple years. And if you are talking about a CAGR, there are many businesses (Retail comes to mind, as does Transportation) which would be perfectly happy with much less than that.</p>
<p>Except that we are talking about educational endowments, which operate similarly to a hedge fund albeit more risk-averse. "Businesses" are irrelevant.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I simply dont understand why anyone would defend increases in tuition or any tuition at all when a school is earning a billion a year on its endowment.
[/quote]
Because it's spending that money on educational activities. This is not Exxon-Mobil we're talking about. It is statutorially a nonprofit. For every excess like Bollinger's house, we spend twice as much training more social workers (go take a look at the new school of social work building). There are a ton of capital expenditures on top of the usual operational expenditures. You simply have no idea what goes into a school's capital budget, and if you do you are willfully misrepresenting and oversimplifying.</p>
<p>
[quote]
It should be obvious that at 5 % or less (which includes your amounts spent in excess of tuition, including rapidly increasing administrators salaries and benefits) schools are not doing enough to defray tuiion expenses.
[/quote]
The average amount paid by EFC at Columbia has been going down the last few years, as increased aid has covered any increases in COA. While more "could" be done, growing the principal from which the endowment throws off money is a long-term winning strategy, since because they are beating the market, there will be more money in the long term for every dollar we keep in the fund.
[quote]
There is no justification whatsover for increasing tuition and fees at 4-5 % per year
[/quote]
Except, you know, that the school's educational mission and research aspirations expand as fast as the available funds. There are always way more ideas for spending money than there is to cover it. An excess of money is a ludicrous thing to complain about when there are shortages in so many other institutions.</p>
<p>From your most recent post,
[quote]
And dont forget that Columbia is also contunually adding to its endowment through pervasive fund raising efforts. Why raise it if you're just going to horde it and arent going to use it?
[/quote]
I'll give you a hint: They're not buying yachts with it. They're not sitting around eating Godiva chocolate and telling each other how sweet their scam is. By law it has to get spent, and get spent it does - on operational and capital expenditures. More professors. New buildings. New labs. New research grants. New "Centers". New departments. More students admitted. More housing. Modernized housing. Better facilities management. Better technology throughout the university. And, yes, more</a> financial aid.</p>
<p>Oh, and that new Manhattanville campus you might have heard about. I hear they're not giving those away, either.</p>
<p>Finally,
[quote]
or for using one student's tuition to pay another's financial aid.
[/quote]
If you are against different people paying different real amounts to attend based on their means, then you are against financial aid as a concept. Every price point for each student is based on supply and demand. Because educational opportunity is considered the great equalizer in our society, the school (And the federal government, which supports the concepts financially and legislatively) tries their best to offer services to desired students of any financial means. What that means is differential price points. It's somewhat euphemistically referred to as "financial aid" when in fact what is happening is the top price tag keeps going up while the bottom price tag keeps dropping (and hit zero for students making under $40k this year, $60k at harvard). </p>
<p>Unless you're going to argue that Columbia is somehow not doing right by its students in the manner in which it spends its money, it sounds like you are against the notion of financial aid and the notion of equal access to education. So I don't see what you're whining about here.</p>
<p>^that's thorough, thanks for taking the time denz, nothing more to say.</p>