Endowment losses

Colleges and Universities A-Z Swarthmore College
1

<p>down 20% yoy...could have been worse. Harvard -30%, Haverford -35%</p>

<p><a href="http://www.nacubo.org/Documents/research/2009_NCSE_Public_Tables_Endowment_Market_Values.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nacubo.org/Documents/research/2009_NCSE_Public_Tables_Endowment_Market_Values.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

2

<p>Worst to best performance of the 50 largest endowments</p>

<p>-29.8 Harvard University MA
-28.6 Yale University CT
-27.5 Duke University NC
-26.9 Grinnell College IA
-26.7 Stanford University CA
-26.6 Brown University RI
-26.4 Cornell University NY
-26.1 California Institute of Technology CA
-25.7 Pomona College CA
-25.6 University of Southern California CA
-24.8 University of Texas System TX
-24.8 Northwestern University IL
-24.3 The Rockefeller University NY
-24.0 University of Rochester NY
-23.7 The Texas A&M University System & Foundation TX
-23.7 Washington University in St. Louis MO
-23.7 University of Washington WA
-23.7 Tufts University MA
-23.4 Amherst College MA
-23.2 University of Chicago IL
-23.2 University of Toronto ON
-23.0 University of Notre Dame IN
-22.8 Princeton University NJ
-22.8 Trustees of Dartmouth College NH
-22.7 University of Virginia VA
-22.1 Williams College MA
-21.7 Johns Hopkins University MD
-21.6 Rice University TX
-21.4 Wellesley College MA
-21.3 University of Pittsburgh PA
-20.9 Emory University GA
-20.9 University of Wisconsin Foundation WI
-20.7 University of Michigan MI
-20.7 Indiana University and Foundation IN
-20.7 Pennsylvania State University PA
-20.7 University of Minnesota Foundation MN
-20.6 University of California CA
-20.6 Case Western Reserve University OH
-20.4 The Ohio State University OH
-20.1 Swarthmore College PA
-19.8 Columbia University NY
-19.7 Smith College MA
-19.0 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill & Foundations NC
-18.9 Vanderbilt University TN
-18.0 Michigan State University MI
-17.8 Trustees of Boston College MA
-16.8 Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania PA
-16.8 University of Richmond VA
-16.0 Purdue University IN
-15.4 New York University NY</p>

3

<p>The spring board meeting is this weekend. I expect some announcments of details relative to the budget outline approved at the December meeting:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.swarthmore.edu/Documents/administration/finance_investment_office/approved_budget_adjustment_Dec09.pdf[/url]”>http://www.swarthmore.edu/Documents/administration/finance_investment_office/approved_budget_adjustment_Dec09.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Next year’s tuition and enrollment targets are typically approved during the February meeting. We will likely start seeing some detail on the department budget cuts.</p>

<p>Along with one or two other colleges (Pomona being one), Swarthmore appears to have come though this market decline with as little damage as I’ve seen. Their financials are very, very strong. Endowment spending is under control. Debt ratios are fine and every penny of it is fixed rate, so they don’t have exposure to the coming interest increases. Bond ratings are AAa from Moodys and AAA from S&P. Cash call commitments are managable. Liquity in the endowment is solid.</p>

<p>The cuts, as outlined so far, should leave the programs largely intact. There weren’t any building projects left uncompleted. And, important new programs (like Arabic) had already been built up.</p>