The University of Pennsylvania’s endowment posted a 14.3 percent investment return for the 12 months through June, with equities fueling gains just like at other large college funds.
The value of the endowment rose 14 percent to $12.2 billion. The fund’s growth of $1.5 billion includes investment returns and new gifts, the Ivy League school in Philadelphia said Thursday in a statement.
Good news! Still significantly less than Harvard. Penn should have more alumni than Harvard, and the endowment should be on par. Way to go!
@f2000sa Penn has more undergrad alumni than Harvard but overall the schools are very similar in size I think. It is not realistic to expect Penn to have similar level of endowment as Harvard. The Harvard name and prestige alone brings in donations and gifts Penn cannot match. Still Penn has the biggest endowment after HYPSM, which is very good.
C’mon, Wharton grads in Wall Street and corporate America, donate and close the gap with MIT!
Interestingly enough the biggest cumulative gift to the university was not given by a Penn alum but rather a drop-out and his wife, a Stanford alumna. (over $500million over their lifetimes & through their foundation after their deaths -Walter & Leonore Annenberg for those interested)
Same Annenberg that the freshman dining hall is named after at Harvard?
@Sportsman88 yes the hall at Harvard is in memory of his son Roger who committed suicide while he was a student at Harvard
This is great! I hope this puts Penn in a position in the near future to bring it’s average cost of attendance down to Princeton levels. Gutmann’s Penn Compact 2020 has gone a very long way in making a Penn education truly affordable for those with the most financial need but it would be great if we could make it even more affordable for those of better, though still modest means.
Penn’s total cost is among the highest in Ivies. Many people in middle tier have no financial aid and are struggling. Penn should do something to lower the total cost and make it more affordable for people with no FA.
@f2000sa - sure, but Penn is a BIG operation. Unlike Princeton or Dartmouth (or even Yale), Penn is LARGE, and the endowment payouts have to go toward a wider array of endeavors. It’s much easier to provide financial aid when you have an endowment of $23B and a student population of 8,000, rather than a $12B endowment and a student population of 26,000.
One of President Gutmann’s BEST successes was concentration and success in the endowment. As Penn’s rankings have been relatively flat since the Rodin days (or dropped slightly), endowment performance has been a great hook and sign of positivity.
Unfortunately size isn’t a great excuse. Penn has 24,960 students (including graduate/undergraduate and full time/part time) but Columbia has 29,372 (and over 30,000 if you include Barnard (which has it’s own endowment that even when you add to columbia’s still doesn’t match Penn’s) and it has a slightly lower average cost of attendance than Penn for its undergrads.
I think the reality is that the growing endowment has put Penn in a wonderful position for a lot of momentum towards overall improvement of the university, but part of that improvement has to include making the education affordable for more than those in just the bottom and top income brackets.
Penn has, rightfully, invested a ton since the late 80s in ensuring that its academic programs across the board and its physical plant are on par with those of Yale & Friends but it has consequently not made the investments in affordability for all that will make it truly accessible. And while it’s incredible that Penn has been offering an education and set of experiences that can rival Yale & Friends in a way that it often couldn’t in the mid 20th century, that doesn’t matter much to the middle-income americans who just can’t swing the cost.