<p>UVa's heavy investment in hedge funds leading to cash calls and significant investment losses.</p>
<p>Cavalier</a> Daily</p>
<p>Someone please translate this into simple English ;)</p>
<p>Which part(s)? Overall it's bad effing news.</p>
<p>Sum it up in two or three sentences.</p>
<p>Our current endowment is 2.9 billion? This</a> report said it was $5.1 billion in July. :eek:</p>
<p>It’s the sign of the times. I’m sure most if not all schools’ endowments took a hit this year - even Barron’s alma mater the</a> University of Wisconsin.</p>
<p>Actually, I think the Cavalier Daily article's figure is misleading. UVA’s total endowment is currently worth $4 billion. The $2.9 billion figure stated in the Cavalier Daily does not include the endowments from UVA’s foundations and various schools (i.e. Law, Darden, McIntire, etc.) The $5.1 billion figure from July was from all of UVA’s endowments as explained in Galosien’s link. So in short, UVA’s endowment did take a hit, but not as hard as the Cavalier Daily reported. It's down by 20% - the same as Wisconsin's losses.</p>
<p>considering the state of the economy, and the stock market especially, being down 20% is pretty good.</p>
<p>But what you fail to point out as this is just through Sept 2008. October saw a decline in the markets of close to 20%, thus you can expect a huge decline in the endowment of at least 10%+ in October.</p>
<p>You also can expect current year receipts from contributions to be severely down.</p>
<p>Cornell</a>, Swarthmore, Colby, UTexas, and many others have taken big hits this year.</p>
<p>Bottom line - combined with the state budget cuts, we'll be very lucky to see cost of attendance not increasing by at least 10% annually for the next few years.</p>
<p>How about schools watching their budgets for a change. Oh that's right, they take lessons from the U.S. Congress</p>
<p>UVA:</a> Sorry, Alumni, We Gambled Our Endowment And Lost</p>
<p>Also the UW does not depend so much on its endowment as the state and research still provide substantial funding.</p>
<p>($490 million and $1 Billion respectively)</p>
<p>UVa's endowment will come back, just like the economy. And, I don't think the funding is being hit too hard: they're tearing up a concrete sidewalk over by the chapel just to lay down brick so it looks pretty. I think UVa finance people know what they're doing, we just need to wait it out.</p>
<p>Haha Barrons, Wisconsin is also GINORMOUS and has a tiny endowment. For its size, its endowment needs to be closer to Texas' endowment. Wisconsin's $490 million loss is still a 20% loss. You lost less money because your endowment is smaller. Wisconsin long ago sacrificed its undergrad education for research -- hence its dependence on research money.</p>
<p>ADDENDUM: By the way, with less liquid money out there, that means less money for research. With less tax dollars because of the bad economy, that means less government funding...even in Wisconsin. Food for thought. </p>
<p>Can I offer you some Windex for your glass house?</p>
<p>Anyway, you know it's bad when even [url=<a href="http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081111/D94CEJ7G0.html%5DHarvard%5B/url">http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081111/D94CEJ7G0.html]Harvard[/url</a>] with its $36.9 billion endowment has to cut spending.</p>
<p>On your research money topic: I don't think UVa will be hit that hard from this, seeming not all professors are here for research. But, UVa attracts top teachers for its research ability, so it may not help recruitment/retention. Then again, look at the bright side: everyone is having this problem.</p>
<p>Again, I think if everyone is patient, things will clear up</p>
<p>I've always felt uncomfortable with institutional wealth being concentrated in speculative markets. Somehow I feel more comfortable with rent-based models of business, which feel more "solid" to me, and less like pyramid schemes (however prestigious). Of course, I don't really know anything about finance beyond having Econ 201 credit :D</p>
<p>Shoebox, you're my new favorite person.</p>
<p>For one thing Globy, that endowment is just one of several. The major ones are NOT in that "tiny" enowment. They are in the UW Foundation and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. Those two had about $4 Billion prior to the current crash. </p>
<p>Wisconsin</a> Alumni Research Foundation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</p>
<p>Financial</a> and Annual Reports - UW Foundation</p>
<p>On another note, apparently your beloved Yale Club has had enough of people from other schools using their club. </p>
<p>"Snobbery is alive and well at the Yale Club, although New York City publications are debating exactly what the controversy means. In “Snobs in a Snit at Ivy Club,” The New York Post alerted readers that members of the club, located in midtown Manhattan, are upset that too many non-members are being allowed to rent the place for weddings or other celebrations. “I just want to put my feet up here, but instead, weddings are being shipped down from the Bronx,” was how Mrs. Harrison DeSilver described the problem to the Post. Other members complained that they are forced to encounter non-club members in the pool or gym. Horrors! New York Magazine then came to the club’s defense, sort of, by saying that the quote about the Bronx gives the wrong impression about the objections. Rather, the magazine said, alumni are upset that the Yale Club has arrangements to admit alumni of Dartmouth College and the University of Virginia. “Elis don’t have a snobby Bronx problem, they have a perfectly understandable safety-school problem,” according to the magazine.</p>
<p>
[quote]
seeming not all professors are here for research.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Not sure how much I agree with you there. Everyone I know (well, at least math/science) is research-oriented and if you just want to teach and not research then you belong at a LAC not UVA, from what I've been told. Even Curry (I'm in Curry... I know first hand) is research driven. A lot of professors are leaving Curry to go TEACH and not research at other universities. Even in the teacher ed program we have a required research credit.</p>
<p>Also don't get me started about the CS dept's TA budget (or lack thereof).</p>
<p>UVa has made a very firm commitment to upgrade the research function based heavily on this linked report. So far they have had some bumps trying to get the thing going as they found it VERY expensive to lure top scientists. They are re-thinking how they try to build this area. </p>