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I may be biased, but that's a rather subjective statement.
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<p>It's not just you. I'd take Rice over Cornell too, and I'm a northeasterner with an Ivy background.</p>
<p>In D#1s college search, college endowment played no role whatsoever. Since that time, reading on CC, I've done some thinking about it.</p>
<p>Endowment size should play a role in a college's overall appeal, I believe.
A larger endowment should enable a college to improve itself in various ways, such as:</p>
<p>residence-life staffing, physical plant maintenance, faculty compensation, class sizes, range of offerings, financial aid/scholarships, funding for various special programs and student-faculty research, and beefed-up recreational and fitness offerings. </p>
<p>Having more programs should tend to make a college more appealing to a wider variety of applicants. Consequently it should get more applicants. And if it gets more applicants it will be more selective. It should also make the college more affordable through better financial aid packages. This should tend to cause it to have higher yield.</p>
<p>So did I make a mistake first time around?
Not necessarily.</p>
<p>In the end, the uses of the endowment should be evidenced by what is actually offered. And what is offered may or may not be appealing to an individual applicant. </p>
<p>Maybe College A, with a huge endowment, offers a huge intra- and extra-mural sports program, with 70 sports. But College B, with lower endowment, just offers tiddlywinks. But it is great in tiddlywinks. And you happen to be a varsity-level tiddlywinks champ, with no interest in any other sports. In fact you hate being around jocks. </p>
<p>In aggregate, many more students might be interested in applying to College A, since it meets the needs of a wider range/number of students. But you as an individual might actually prefer College B.</p>
<p>Maybe College A, with its huge endowment, should be able to offer sizable financial aid awards to many deserving students. But in the end, when the letters come in, College A in fact awards you nothing whereas College B gives you a reasonable package. So College A has all these extra resources that are being put to work for a greater number of students, helping to enhance its yield overall. But for you, personally, College B is better in this regard.</p>
<p>Maybe College A has a $$multi-billion endowment. But it is in Duluth, and you don't want to be in Duluth.</p>
<p>So the point is, all things being equal a bigger endowment should be an assset which should have tangible evident value in the college selection process. But in each individual's college search, all things are never equal. The issue ultimately is what this endowment spending does for you, in ways that you care about. It should always be a positive, but the degree to which it matters can be offset by other factors of greater personal importance in each individual's college search.</p>
<p>An interesting aspect is which measure is most relevant: total endowment size or endowment per student. I think it depends. </p>
<p>Another issue, for universities, is where does this endowment spending go: to undergraduate education or to grad/professional schools. Once again, to be highly relevant to you, as an individual applicant, it should manifest itself in ways that are material to you. And these manifestations should be there for you to evaluate. In terms of programs, extracurriculars, courses of study, etc. that matter to you.</p>
<p>Monydad,</p>
<p>You make too much sense -- but I like what you say. :) </p>
<p>I agree that there are tangible benefits stemming from large educational endowments, although many of them are "hidden" below the surface. The direct evidence of such benefits are sometimes harder to see or not directly applicable to every student. For instance, if a school such as Emory has established and maintained their Emory Scholars Program, it is still restricted to those students who can stand up to the scrutiny of extremely high academic benchmarks. Even a student with a rigorous academic courseload, 3.8 GPA, and SAT score of 2200+ may not make the finalist cut. Hence, though Emory pays out millions of dollars each year in merit scholarships, not everybody benefits. </p>
<p>As well, certain donations to an endowment fund can be earmarked toward specific interests of the benefactor. So, in the instance of the recent $261.5 million donation given to Emory by the Woodruff Foundation, it will have no direct benefit to the undergraduate program. Yet, indirectly, it may increase the resources to Emory healthcare programs, which in turn may provide further research/internship opportunities for undergrads -- this at a school acknowledged for its excellence in pre-med studies. </p>
<p>Endowment funds serve to enable, but not all that is enabled are relevant to all, and as you mentioned Monydad, the size of the endowment fund is irrelevant if the school is situated in a region not desired by a given student.</p>
<p>I see here that many of you are trying to determine how a large endowment actually creates quality, and to some extent, it can. </p>
<p>However, I would also say that some of the causation is the other way around - that in some ways, it is actually quality that actually * creates * a large endowment. For example, students who get a high quality education tend to be more successful in life, therefore making more money, which they can then donate back to the university. This is especially so when you have rich alumni who want to maximize their chances of sending their kid back to their old, high quality alma mater, and so donate money in order to derive the maximum legacy admissions benefit. We don't even necessarily have to be talking about alumni. Some rich non-alumni might want to win admission for their kid to go to a certain high-quality school by donating a lot of money to that school. </p>
<p>Hence, one could say that a large endowment perhaps doesn't so much * create * high quality so much as it * signals * high quality.</p>
<p>Since a part of the endowment is always invested to generate interest, it follows that older institutions that have had more decades to compound interest and re-invest dividends will have a larger endowment--also more years to create successful alumni.</p>
<p>Historically, women's colleges have also suffered from alumnae who marry and have husbands who are the chief money earners and then donate to the husband's alma mater--</p>
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Historically, women's colleges have also suffered from alumnae who marry and have husbands who are the chief money earners and then donate to the husband's alma mater--
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<p>Of course some women's colleges combat that by affiliating themselves with another school, like Barnard with Columbia. Or, sometimes even merging with that other school entirely, like Radcliffe with Harvard. </p>
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Since a part of the endowment is always invested to generate interest, it follows that older institutions that have had more decades to compound interest and re-invest dividends will have a larger endowment--also more years to create successful alumni.
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<p>Which makes the relatively young and rich schools even more impressive. For example, MIT, Stanford, and Emory were all founded in the 1800's. UC, Texas, and Texas A&M also are relatively young, although the endowment figures are warped by the fact that they are measuring entire school systems as opposed to individual campuses. UC, for example, has to share its endowment among 10 universities and a law school. </p>