New Endowment Data is Out

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Each January the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) publishes a report on college endowments. The data is based on the end of the last fiscal year (6/30/07 in this case) and so does not reflect changes in value since that time. </p>

<p>Here are the rankings they published, both in absolute asset terms and in terms of endowment per capita which is perhaps a better measure of how much money institutions have to spend for their students. </p>

<p>Rk , Total Endowment as of 6/30/07 , College</p>

<p>1 , $34,634,906,000 , Harvard
2 , $22,530,200,000 , Yale
3 , $17,164,386,000 , Stanford
4 , $15,787,200,000 , Princeton
5 , $15,613,672,000 , U Texas system
6 , $9,980,410,000 , MIT
7 , $7,149,803,000 , Columbia
8 , $7,089,830,000 , U Michigan
9 , $6,635,187,000 , U Penn
10 , $6,590,300,000 , Texas A&M system
11 , $6,503,292,000 , Northwestern
12 , $6,439,346,000 , UC System
13 , $6,204,189,000 , U Chicago
14 , $5,986,173,000 , Notre Dame
15 , $5,910,280,000 , Duke
16 , $5,567,843,000 , Wash U StL
17 , $5,561,743,000 , Emory
18 , $5,424,733,000 , Cornell
19 , $4,669,544,000 , Rice
20 , $4,370,209,000 , U Virginia
21 , $3,760,234,000 , Dartmouth
22 , $3,715,272,000 , USC
23 , $3,487,500,000 , Vanderbilt
24 , $2,804,466,000 , U Minnesota
25 , $2,800,377,000 , J Hopkins
26 , $2,780,798,000 , Brown
27 , $2,338,103,000 , Ohio State
28 , $2,254,379,000 , U Pittsburgh
29 , $2,184,374,000 , U Washington
30 , $2,164,444,000 , U North Carolina
31 , $2,161,800,000 , NYU
33 , $1,892,055,000 , Williams
34 , $1,860,052,000 , Cal Tech
35 , $1,841,234,000 , Case Western
36 , $1,786,592,000 , Purdue
38 , $1,760,902,000 , Pomona
39 , $1,726,318,000 , U Rochester
40 , $1,718,313,000 , Grinnell
41 , $1,670,092,000 , Boston College
42 , $1,662,377,000 , Amherst
42 , $1,645,250,000 , U Wisconsin
43 , $1,656,565,000 , Wellesley
44 , $1,654,988,000 , U Richmond
46 , $1,590,000,000 , Penn State
47 , $1,556,853,000 , Indiana U
48 , $1,515,387,000 , U Illinois UC
49 , $1,452,058,000 , Tufts
50 , $1,441,232,000 , Swarthmore
51 , $1,409,576,000 , Yeshiva
52 , $1,397,492,000 , U Delaware
53 , $1,360,966,000 , Smith
54 , $1,327,816,000 , SMU
55 , $1,281,162,000 , Georgia Tech
57 , $1,277,169,000 , U Nebraska
58 , $1,248,695,000 , Wake Forest
59 , $1,247,713,000 , Michigan St
60 , $1,238,695,000 , U Kansas
61 , $1,219,026,000 , U Florida
64 , $1,147,451,000 , G. Washington
65 , $1,115,740,000 , Carnegie Mellon
69 , $1,101,386,000 , Boston Univ
70 , $1,097,846,000 , U Missouri
71 , $1,086,143,000 , Syracuse
72 , $1,085,639,000 , Lehigh
73 , $1,059,343,000 , Georgetown
74 , $1,018,102,000 , Baylor
76 , $1,009,129,000 , Tulane
77 , $999,816,000 , U Alabama
84 , $936,354,000 , Middlebury
87 , $869,122,000 , Vassar
92 , $812,996,000 , Rensselaer
96 , $741,382,000 , U Miami FL
97 , $734,924,000 , Pepperdine
106 , $691,370,000 , Brandeis
129 , $585,904,000 , W & M</p>

<p>Rank , Endowment Per Capita as of 6/30/07 , College</p>

<p>1 , $2,331,935 , Princeton
2 , $2,212,096 , Yale
3 , $2,070,846 , Harvard
4 , $1,139,742 , Pomona
5 , $1,038,883 , Grinnell
6 , $1,008,724 , Amherst
7 , $973,414 , MIT
8 , $971,181 , Swarthmore
9 , $923,404 , Williams
10 , $907,589 , Rice
11 , $891,684 , Cal Tech
12 , $867,677 , Stanford
13 , $714,653 , Wellesley
14 , $642,885 , Dartmouth
15 , $583,046 , U Chicago
16 , $544,297 , Notre Dame
17 , $542,086 , U Richmond
18 , $518,529 , Emory
19 , $506,017 , Duke
20 , $500,171 , Smith
21 , $469,546 , Yeshiva
22 , $460,114 , Wash U StL
23 , $407,041 , Northwestern
24 , $374,542 , Middlebury
25 , $354,599 , Vassar
26 , $340,159 , Brown
27 , $324,352 , U Texas
28 , $310,861 , Columbia
29 , $295,580 , U Penn
30 , $294,378 , Vanderbilt
31 , $273,976 , Cornell
32 , $229,924 , Case Western
33 , $218,113 , Wake Forest
34 , $204,467 , U Rochester
35 , $182,145 , Tufts
36 , $180,163 , U Virginia
37 , $172,746 , U Michigan
38 , $158,303 , Lehigh
39 , $147,388 , J Hopkins
40 , $143,152 , Texas A&M
41 , $139,140 , SMU
42 , $130,128 , Brandeis
43 , $129,184 , Boston College
44 , $121,101 , USC
45 , $114,181 , Tulane
46 , $110,251 , Carnegie Mellon
47 , $109,377 , Rensselaer
48 , $106,603 , Pepperdine
49 , $93,392 , Georgetown
50 , $90,175 , U Pittsburgh
51 , $86,489 , G. Washington
52 , $85,288 , U North Carolina
53 , $82,591 , W & M
54 , $76,006 , Baylor
55 , $71,430 , Georgia Tech
56 , $70,788 , U Delaware
57 , $64,640 , Syracuse
58 , $59,366 , U Minnesota
59 , $58,837 , U Nebraska
60 , $57,907 , U Washington
61 , $57,737 , NYU
62 , $54,179 , U Miami FL
63 , $48,147 , Ohio State
64 , $46,657 , Purdue
65 , $45,145 , U Kansas
66 , $42,999 , U Alabama
67 , $42,308 , U Wisconsin
68 , $40,899 , Indiana U
69 , $40,435 , U Missouri
70 , $37,156 , Penn State
71 , $36,839 , U Illinois UC
72 , $36,773 , Boston Univ
73 , $28,409 , Michigan St
74 , $26,188 , U Florida</p>

<p>**Note: These per capita numbers do NOT include the UC schools because I did not have their breakdown. If someone has that, please supply.</p>

2

<p>UC's endowment is sad...lower than Texas A&M?!</p>

3

<p>^Texas A&M has significantly smaller number of students.</p>

4

<p>Texas A&M (And U Texas) was given rights to lots of "worthless" land that happened to have lots of oil under it.</p>

5

<p><a href="http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2008/01/24/harvards_endowment_surpasses_34_billion/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2008/01/24/harvards_endowment_surpasses_34_billion/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Paced by Harvard University's staggering $34 billion stockpile, 76 colleges now boast endowments over $1 billion after robust returns on their investments over the past year, according to an annual study being released today.</p>

<p>Harvard's endowment rose by nearly $6 billion over the past year, a nearly 20 percent increase. Yale University's endowment, the nation's second largest, rose to $22.5 billion, a 25 percent increase.</p>

<p>Stanford University, Princeton University, and the University of Texas system rounded out the top five.</p>

<p>Among colleges with endowments greater than $1 billion, the median one-year return was 21 percent. Nationally, the median return was 17.2 percent, the highest since 1998.</p>

<p>"It was a very good year for endowments," said Jessica Shedd, director of research and policy analysis for the National Association of College and University Business Officers, which conducted the study.</p>

<p>The report, considered the most comprehensive survey of college endowments, surveyed 785 colleges and universities in the United States and Canada.</p>

<p>Over the past decade, college endowments showed an 8.6 percent rate of return, an important threshold in maintaining financial stability, Shedd said.</p>

<p>"That allows you to retain the purchasing power of the endowment."</p>

<p>She credited a strong stock market for fueling the endowment increases, pointing out that the S&P 500 index rose by more than 20 percent over the past fiscal year, which ended last June.</p>

<p>Other New England colleges that hold more than $1 billion in reserves include the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose endowment rose to nearly $10 billion; Dartmouth College at $3.7 billion; Williams College, which rose by almost 30 percent to nearly $1.9 billion; and Boston University, which topped the threshold at $1.1 billion, a 20 percent increase.</p>

<p>"We're certainly pleased with the rate of return," said Bill Lenhart, Williams's provost and treasurer.</p>

<p>Lenhart said the strong performance will help the college use the endowment to eliminate student loans from financial aid packages.</p>

<p>Tufts University, whose endowment fund grew more in fiscal year 2006 than any other major US college and university in the country, surged another 26 percent last fiscal year to $1.4 billion.</p>

<p>As endowments soar, the wealthiest colleges and universities are facing growing pressure from Congress to spend more of their savings to limit tuition increases and expand financial aid grants.</p>

<p>Some lawmakers have suggested requiring colleges to spend at least 5 percent of their endowments each year, as nonprofits are required to do.</p>

<p>Colleges have spent proportionately less of their endowment for each of the past four years and now spend 4.6 percent on average. Institutions with more than $1 billion spent 4.4 percent.</p>

<p>A number of elite universities have announced financial aid increases in recent months. In December, Harvard announced it would spend $120 million on financial aid next year, a $22 million increase. It also said it would require families earning $120,000 to $180,000 a year to pay no more than 10 percent of their income on average.</p>

<p>Earlier this month, Yale announced it would increase spending from its endowment by nearly 40 percent.</p>

<p>John Longbrake, a Harvard spokesman, said endowment spending financed almost one-third of Harvard's operating budget and financial aid programs.</p>

<p>But critics say colleges should spend far more of their fortunes to justify their tax-exempt status. Lynne Munson, an adjunct research fellow at the Center for College Affordability and Productivity who testified before Congress on the issue last fall, said Harvard could allow its students to attend for free for just $300 million, a fraction of last year's return.</p>

<p>"They could easily afford it," she said.</p>

6

<p>RE: Endowment Per Capita as of 6/30/07 , College</p>

<p>I can tell you from reading the above that some Liberal Arts Colleges not on the list have BETTER endowments per capita than the ones listed in the top 74 on the above list.</p>

<p>Hillsdale College for instance, has a student population of only 1,300, yet their endowment is $215 Million, making a per capita endowment of $165,384.</p>

<p>Wheaton College at Illinois has a student population of just 2,890, yet their endowment is $502 M, making a per capita endowment of $173,000.</p>

<p>They could have easily made the Top 40, but yet, are not listed anywhere.</p>

7

<p>NACUBO surveyed 785 institutions in the USA and Canada and reports that a record 76 colleges and universities had endowments over $1bn. The list provided above is not exhaustive and only includes the top 10 LACs. </p>

<p>I found the per capita results of most interest: </p>

<ol>
<li><p>While HYP clearly dominate the rankings, there are many other colleges (25) that meet the per capita levels of the non-HYP Ivies. </p></li>
<li><p>The top three LACs put in a very impressive performance with per capita levels of $1mm or more per student and 2 more LACs not far behind. And this has important implications as this is all for undergraduate study, which is a sharp contrast with those research institutions that have large graduate numbers. At the colleges with larger graduate populations (and particularly those with large efforts in the technical fields), it is likely that the per capita numbers provided above overstate the actual benefit to undergraduate students. </p></li>
<li><p>A couple of surprising results were U Richmond which gets almost no interest on CC and Smith which gets only scant attention. Yeshiva also did very well. These colleges are financially strong and have the ability to make substantial investments in developing their product for the future with potentially positive consequences for undergraduates. Clearly the money has made a substantial difference in the profile and quality of U Richmond along the Eastern seaboard. </p></li>
<li><p>For those who like to play the guessing game about which colleges will rise or fall in future rankings, the endowment figures should be studied. These figures can have an important role in an institution's ability to spend on new classrooms, new labs, hire new and top quality faculty, provide more student counseling, etc. </p></li>
<li><p>It is no surprise that the public universities are mostly at the bottom of this list as they have historically not done a lot of fund-raising. This will have to change as their funding is clearly under pressure all across the country. A few publics (U Virginia and U Michigan) have done a superb job of fund-raising, but more will need to be done if they are to remain competitive with the top privates. But a few elite private institutions also have noticeably lower levels of per capita endowment, eg, Georgetown, which may impede their institutional operating flexibility. </p></li>
</ol>

<p>$2 million + , 3 colleges , All private (3 Ivies)
$1-2 million , 3 colleges , All private
$500k-1 million , 14 colleges , All private (1 Ivy)
$250k-500k , 11 colleges , 10 private (4 Ivies), 1 public
$100k-250k , 19 colleges , 15 private, 4 public
(**I think that the UCB and UCLA would fall in this group along with U Virginia and U Michigan)<br>
less than $100k , 26 colleges , 7 private, 19 public</p>

<p>$2 million + , 3 colleges , All private (3 Ivies)
$2,331,935 , Princeton<br>
$2,212,096 , Yale<br>
$2,070,846 , Harvard </p>

<p>$1-2 million , 3 colleges , All private
$1,139,742 , Pomona<br>
$1,038,883 , Grinnell<br>
$1,008,724 , Amherst </p>

<p>$500k-1 million 14 colleges All private (1 Ivy)
$973,414 , MIT<br>
$971,181 , Swarthmore<br>
$923,404 , Williams<br>
$907,589 , Rice<br>
$891,684 , Cal Tech<br>
$867,677 , Stanford<br>
$714,653 , Wellesley<br>
$642,885 , Dartmouth<br>
$583,046 , U Chicago<br>
$544,297 , Notre Dame<br>
$542,086 , U Richmond<br>
$518,529 , Emory<br>
$506,017 , Duke<br>
$500,171 , Smith </p>

<p>$250k-500k , 11 colleges , 10 private (4 Ivies), 1 public
$469,546 , Yeshiva<br>
$460,114 , Wash U StL<br>
$407,041 , Northwestern<br>
$374,542 , Middlebury<br>
$354,599 , Vassar<br>
$340,159 , Brown<br>
$324,352 , U Texas<br>
$310,861 , Columbia<br>
$295,580 , U Penn<br>
$294,378 , Vanderbilt<br>
$273,976 , Cornell </p>

<p>$100k-250k , 19 colleges , 15 private, 4 public
(**I think that the UCB and UCLA would fall in this group along with U Virginia and U Michigan)<br>
$229,924 , Case Western<br>
$218,113 , Wake Forest<br>
$204,467 , U Rochester<br>
$182,145 , Tufts<br>
$180,163 , U Virginia<br>
$172,746 , U Michigan<br>
$158,303 , Lehigh<br>
$147,388 , J Hopkins<br>
$143,152 , Texas A&M<br>
$139,140 , SMU<br>
$130,128 , Brandeis<br>
$129,184 , Boston College<br>
$121,101 , USC<br>
$114,181 , Tulane<br>
$110,251 , Carnegie Mellon<br>
$109,377 , Rensselaer<br>
$106,603 , Pepperdine </p>

<p>less than $100k , 26 colleges , 7 private, 19 public
$93,392 , Georgetown<br>
$90,175 , U Pittsburgh<br>
$86,489 , G. Washington<br>
$85,288 , U North Carolina<br>
$82,591 , W & M<br>
$76,006 , Baylor<br>
$71,430 , Georgia Tech<br>
$70,788 , U Delaware<br>
$64,640 , Syracuse<br>
$59,366 , U Minnesota<br>
$58,837 , U Nebraska<br>
$57,907 , U Washington<br>
$57,737 , NYU<br>
$54,179 , U Miami FL<br>
$48,147 , Ohio State<br>
$46,657 , Purdue<br>
$45,145 , U Kansas<br>
$42,999 , U Alabama<br>
$42,308 , U Wisconsin<br>
$40,899 , Indiana U<br>
$40,435 , U Missouri<br>
$37,156 , Penn State<br>
$36,839 , U Illinois UC<br>
$36,773 , Boston Univ<br>
$28,409 , Michigan St<br>
$26,188 , U Florida </p>

<p>the watcher,</p>

<p>You are right about the per capita numbers. I should have qualified my per capita tables above to indicate that this was for those institutions that have endowments of $1bn or more (and I added in a few more that are frequently mentioned on CC).</p>

8

<p>IMO they should break down places like the Texas and UC systems by school</p>

9

<p>To echo what TheWatcher said on post #5, I'd like to add Furman University, which has an endowment of $478 M with just 3,000 students. This adds up to a per capita endowment of close to $160,000.</p>

<p>Here's also one excellent LAC people tend to overlook -- Berea College in Kentucky ( not even on the list ).</p>

<p>It has a $ 1 Billion Endowment ( which makes it one of the top 100 in ABSOLUTE ENDOWMENT TERMS ). It only has 1,500 students.</p>

<p>In per capita terms it adds up to close to $670,000 per student !! Astonishing for a small school. This makes them qualify for the top 15 !!</p>

10

<p>UCLA would likely be about $750 million divided by about 35,000 students, so around $25,000 per student.</p>

<p>Don't forget though, that UCLA, UC San Diego, UC Berkeley, and other prestigious Publics get tens of millions of operating dollars per year from federal research grants.</p>

11

<p>According to this data from the UC Treasurer as of June 30, 2006:</p>

<p>Berkeley: $2,464,109,000
UCLA: $1,912,071,000</p>

<p><a href="http://www.ucop.edu/treasurer/foundation/foundation.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.ucop.edu/treasurer/foundation/foundation.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Endowment per capita using Fall 2007 enrollment:
Berkeley: $73,428
UCLA: $51,370</p>

<ul>
<li>I don't know why they don't have a 2007 report breakdown yet.*</li>
</ul>

12

<p>Bowdoin is missing from this list. It's endowment current stands at $828 million, which is $484, 210 dollars per student. </p>

<p>So, I'm including Bowdoin in this list: </p>

<p>Rk , Total Endowment as of 6/30/07 , College</p>

<p>1 , $34,634,906,000 , Harvard
2 , $22,530,200,000 , Yale
3 , $17,164,386,000 , Stanford
4 , $15,787,200,000 , Princeton
5 , $15,613,672,000 , U Texas system
6 , $9,980,410,000 , MIT
7 , $7,149,803,000 , Columbia
8 , $7,089,830,000 , U Michigan
9 , $6,635,187,000 , U Penn
10 , $6,590,300,000 , Texas A&M system
11 , $6,503,292,000 , Northwestern
12 , $6,439,346,000 , UC System
13 , $6,204,189,000 , U Chicago
14 , $5,986,173,000 , Notre Dame
15 , $5,910,280,000 , Duke
16 , $5,567,843,000 , Wash U StL
17 , $5,561,743,000 , Emory
18 , $5,424,733,000 , Cornell
19 , $4,669,544,000 , Rice
20 , $4,370,209,000 , U Virginia
21 , $3,760,234,000 , Dartmouth
22 , $3,715,272,000 , USC
23 , $3,487,500,000 , Vanderbilt
24 , $2,804,466,000 , U Minnesota
25 , $2,800,377,000 , J Hopkins
26 , $2,780,798,000 , Brown
27 , $2,338,103,000 , Ohio State
28 , $2,254,379,000 , U Pittsburgh
29 , $2,184,374,000 , U Washington
30 , $2,164,444,000 , U North Carolina
31 , $2,161,800,000 , NYU
33 , $1,892,055,000 , Williams
34 , $1,860,052,000 , Cal Tech
35 , $1,841,234,000 , Case Western
36 , $1,786,592,000 , Purdue
38 , $1,760,902,000 , Pomona
39 , $1,726,318,000 , U Rochester
40 , $1,718,313,000 , Grinnell
41 , $1,670,092,000 , Boston College
42 , $1,662,377,000 , Amherst
42 , $1,645,250,000 , U Wisconsin
43 , $1,656,565,000 , Wellesley
44 , $1,654,988,000 , U Richmond
46 , $1,590,000,000 , Penn State
47 , $1,556,853,000 , Indiana U
48 , $1,515,387,000 , U Illinois UC
49 , $1,452,058,000 , Tufts
50 , $1,441,232,000 , Swarthmore
51 , $1,409,576,000 , Yeshiva
52 , $1,397,492,000 , U Delaware
53 , $1,360,966,000 , Smith
54 , $1,327,816,000 , SMU
55 , $1,281,162,000 , Georgia Tech
57 , $1,277,169,000 , U Nebraska
58 , $1,248,695,000 , Wake Forest
59 , $1,247,713,000 , Michigan St
60 , $1,238,695,000 , U Kansas
61 , $1,219,026,000 , U Florida
64 , $1,147,451,000 , G. Washington
65 , $1,115,740,000 , Carnegie Mellon
69 , $1,101,386,000 , Boston Univ
70 , $1,097,846,000 , U Missouri
71 , $1,086,143,000 , Syracuse
72 , $1,085,639,000 , Lehigh
73 , $1,059,343,000 , Georgetown
74 , $1,018,102,000 , Baylor
76 , $1,009,129,000 , Tulane
77 , $999,816,000 , U Alabama
84 , $936,354,000 , Middlebury
87 , $869,122,000 , Vassar
88, $828,000,000 , Bowdoin
92 , $812,996,000 , Rensselaer
96 , $741,382,000 , U Miami FL
97 , $734,924,000 , Pepperdine
106 , $691,370,000 , Brandeis
129 , $585,904,000 , W & M</p>

<p>Rank , Endowment Per Capita as of 6/30/07 , College</p>

<p>1 , $2,331,935 , Princeton
2 , $2,212,096 , Yale
3 , $2,070,846 , Harvard
4 , $1,139,742 , Pomona
5 , $1,038,883 , Grinnell
6 , $1,008,724 , Amherst
7 , $973,414 , MIT
8 , $971,181 , Swarthmore
9 , $923,404 , Williams
10 , $907,589 , Rice
11 , $891,684 , Cal Tech
12 , $867,677 , Stanford
13 , $714,653 , Wellesley
14 , $642,885 , Dartmouth
15 , $583,046 , U Chicago
16 , $544,297 , Notre Dame
17 , $542,086 , U Richmond
18 , $518,529 , Emory
19 , $506,017 , Duke
20 , $500,171 , Smith
21 , $484,210, Bowdoin
22 , $469,546 , Yeshiva
23 , $460,114 , Wash U StL
24 , $407,041 , Northwestern
25 , $374,542 , Middlebury</p>

13

<p>There is an Engineering and Architecture School in New York City called THE COOPER UNION for the Advancement of Science and Art . It is one of the few American institutions of higher learning to offer a full-tuition scholarship to all admitted students. </p>

<p>It only has 918 students and has an endowment of close to $290 M.</p>

<p>That's a per capita endowment of close to $308,000 !! They're definitely in the top 40.</p>

<p>Thomas Edison went to this school for those who want to know.</p>

14

<p>UCBChemEGrad,
Thanks for the data on UCB and UCLA. Please send on the new numbers if you find them. I am a little surprised that theirs are this low so that really puts the endowment per capitas for U Virginia and U Michigan and especially U Texas in a class of their own for top publics. But I agree with your point about the degree of state funding making up some of this difference. The problem, of course, is that state funding is under pressure everywhere and thus the issue of endowment is becoming increasingly important. </p>

<p>boston08,
Thanks for the data on Bowdoin. I'm sorry that I couldn't include them and the many other fine schools with sub-$1 billion endowments, but still high per capita figures. Clearly, Bowdoin's great financial resources and its commitment to undergraduate education bode well for how the institution spends its money vis-a-vis the students. As others are posting, there are probably several more private schools that have strong per capita numbers.</p>

15

<p>I'd like to add something to keep things in perspective -- The endowment of Harvard University alone tops the GDP of many countries.</p>

<p>See here for the GDP of all countries in the United Nations :</p>

<p>[List</a> of countries by GDP (nominal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal%5DList"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal))&lt;/p>

16

<p>
[quote]
But I agree with your point about the degree of state funding making up some of this difference. The problem, of course, is that state funding is under pressure everywhere and thus the issue of endowment is becoming increasingly important.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Data from UC's 2007/08 budget (pg. 9) shows the following additional funding:
<a href="http://budget.ucop.edu/rbudget/200708/200708-budgetforcurrentoperations.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://budget.ucop.edu/rbudget/200708/200708-budgetforcurrentoperations.pdf&lt;/a>
State of California: ~$3.4 billion
Fed: ~$2.4 billion</p>

<p>Total operating budget is ~$13 billion for 2007/8. Not including an additional
~$2.1 billion for the national labs and ~$4 billion for teaching hospitals.</p>

<p>The most important aspect is spending per student capita:
A $13 billion operating budget with 209,000 students yields annual spending of: ~$62k/student</p>

<p>Compared to privates that fund operations from tuition and endowments, and spend about 3% per year...Taking Harvard as an example:</p>

<p>~$35 billion endowment x 3% + tuition (~$665 million: (19,000 x $35k)) = ~$1.7billion/year spending
On a per capita basis (~19,000 students) = ~ $55k/student.</p>

<p>So, education spending per student is on par... in this estimation.</p>

<p>I agree that state funding is in jeopardy and that's why the chancellor of Berkeley has noted the increasing importance of public-private partnerships with the public universities.</p>

17

<p>Not your fault fault, but the data doesn't include the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, which moves UW-Madison inventions to the market place. In 2006-2007 it contributed $50,000,000 to the University.</p>

18

<p>Does anyone else find it ridiculous that across the spectrum, college endowments continue to sharply increase, and yet tuition rates are increasing at a record rate as well?</p>

<p>I don't think that these schools should be afforded with a tax-exempt status if they're going to continue to stockpile their funds and not assist the students through increased financial aid.</p>

<p>Obviously there are some exceptions, but generally, I see this trend as being very disheartening.</p>

19

<p>The current value of the WARF Endowment is approximately $1.8 Billion. all of which goes to UW Madison. There also is the UW System Endowment which was the old UW Madison endowment prior to the merger. It holds about $350 Million 90% of which is for Madison. Finally there is the UW Hospital Medical Foundation which is about $300 Million. All together UW Madison controls about $4 Billion.</p>

20

<p>Dang -- and I was thinking that schools with a few billion were pretty amazing. They still are, of course, but it seems that billion is becoming the "new million" for top colleges.</p>

<p>It's a completely new era, as never before have we seen individual publics like Michigan and Berkeley with such large endowments (I'm not counting the UT system). Someone and I were just talking about this recently: if their endowments get big enough, will state regulations increase or decrease? It's possible that they'd increase, in order to pressure the publics to spend more of their endowments. But it might decrease in that the state feels less pressure to give money to the schools, so the schools demand the state regulate them less. In effect, it's possible they could become a little private.</p>

<p>As for private schools, we also might see something that's never happened before: the government interfering in the private education sector -- pressuring them to spend more of their endowment (on financial aid, etc.) or else they'd take their tax-exempt status away.</p>

<p>Very intriguing indeed -- but only time will tell.</p>

<p>
[quote]
said Harvard could allow its students to attend for free for just $300 million, a fraction of last year's return.</p>

<p>"They could easily afford it," she said.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I think the endowment grew $5 billion; so that means 6% of their returns would be spent on students. Some in the past have asked why Harvard (and similar schools) doesn't let its students attend for free, to which many would reply that Harvard would go bankrupt if it did. But now we can see -- they would get by just fine.</p>

<p>That's another possibility here. Harvard can only grow so much, not just because of infrastructure limits, but also because of practicality: there is a limit where they will no longer really need--or indeed, even want--some facilities, with a fixed # students. So the spending would be mostly on maintaining (and perhaps rebuilding) facilities.</p>

<p>If spending in other areas like this go down, Harvard very well may make its education free for everyone. Thoughts on this? (This certainly isn't unprecedented; I think Cooper Union was the first to do something like this.)</p>