The 20 Wealthiest American National Universities (NACUBO 2011)

College Search & Selection
1

<p><a href="http://www.nacubo.org/Documents/research/2011_NCSE_Public_Tables_Endowment_Market_Values_Final_January_17_2012.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nacubo.org/Documents/research/2011_NCSE_Public_Tables_Endowment_Market_Values_Final_January_17_2012.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Institution -- Endowment Size--Endowment $'s Per Student</p>

<p>Princeton-------$17.1 billion-------$2,259,812.00</p>

<p>--gap--</p>

<p>Yale------------$19.4 billion-------$1,673,424.00
Harvard---------$32.0 billion-------$1,507,656.00</p>

<p>--gap--</p>

<p>Stanford--------$16.5 billion-------$1,077,094.00
MIT------------$9.90 billion----------$953,390.00</p>

<p>--gap--</p>

<p>Caltech--------$1.77 billion----------$794,263.00
Rice-----------$4.45 billion----------$731,906.00
U. of Chicago--$6.31 billion----------$612,384.00
Dartmouth-----$3.41 billion----------$569,567.00
Notre Dame----$6.26 billion----------$533,504.00</p>

<p>--gap--</p>

<p>Duke----------$5.75 billion----------$389,758.00
Emory---------$5.40 billion----------$388,683.00
Wash U.-------$5.28 billion----------$377,288.00
Northwestern--$7.18 billion----------$374,413.00
Penn----------$6.58 billion----------$310,429.00
Brown---------$2.50 billion----------$289,051.00
Columbia------$7.79 billion----------$282,170.00
Cornell--------$5.06 billion----------$241,626.00
UVA-----------$4.76 billion----------$231,610.00
U. of Mich.----$7.83 billion----------$187,167.00</p>

2

<p>Funny how it goes exactly </p>

<p>HYPSM by endowment</p>

3

<p>More like PYHSM?</p>

4

<p>List of top 13 schools by endowment:</p>

<p>Final NACUBO endowment rankings: July 1, 2011 </p>

<hr>

<ol>
<li>Harvard University: $31,728,080,000

<ol>
<li>Yale University: $19,374,000,000</li>
<li>Princeton University: $17,109,508,000</li>
<li>Stanford University: $16,502,606,000</li>
<li>Massachusetts Institute of Technology: $9,712,628,000</li>
<li>University of Michigan-Ann Arbor: $7,834,752,000</li>
<li>Columbia University: $7,789,578,000</li>
<li>University of Texas-Austin: $7,647,205,000</li>
<li>Northwestern University: $7,182,745,000</li>
<li>University of Pennsylvania: $6,582,029,000</li>
<li>University of Chicago: $6,575,126,000</li>
<li>University of Notre Dame: $6,259,598,000</li>
<li>Texas A&M University-College station: $5,975,604,000</li>
</ol></li>
</ol>

<p>Of course public schools like Michigan gets many millions/year from the state that also adds $$$$.</p>

5

<p>This list does not look right. UT Austin has closer to 17-18 billion dollars.</p>

6

<p>I think most of UT Austin’s endowment is counted as part of the UT system endowment even though it gets most of it thus accounting for the discrepancy.</p>

7

<p>If you click on Goldenboy’s link it shows UT at 3. I can’t figure out where the 7.6 number comes from. I am not certain there is a separate number for UT Austin vs system since they are a single number for UT system.</p>

8

<p>I believe there is some variation in endowment numbers depending upon what is included. Sometimes there are affliated endowments that may or may not be included. Also, some universities may have large endowments tied to their medical centers that may or may not be included. </p>

<p>I believe U.Penn separated themselves from the Penn Medicine system a number of years ago because they were afraid malpractice claims might try to go after the university’s endowment.</p>

<p>Some colleges with large endowments say they actually have a relatively small endowment that is available for general purposes. That is because many donors limit their gifts to certain academic or athletic programs.</p>

<p>It is appropriate to show endowment as an average per student, as listed above. Total endowment doesn’t tell you much - if one college has 50,000 students and another only has 9,000 students.</p>

9

<p>The UT system has an endowment around $18 billion. UT Austin has roughly a $7.6 billion endowment.</p>

10

<p>

</p>

<p>But endowment per student is also misleading. Many of the costs of running a college or university are fixed costs, more or less independent of the number of students the institution serves. If you want a 10 million volume library, it will cost you the same amount of money whether you have 1,000 students or 35,000. If you want electronic subscriptions to 5,000 academic journals, it’s probably going to cost you roughly the same whatever your size. If you pay your president $750,000 a year, that cost is the same whether it’s spread across 1,000 students or 35,000 students. Larger schools have major economies of scale that are lost in endowment-per-student calculations.</p>

<p>rjkofnovi is also right that legislative appropriations to public universities are the equivalent of billions in endowment. Most universities take a payout from their endowment at a rate of 5% of endowment assets. At that rate, an annual legislative appropriation of $300 million is the equivalent of $6 billion in endowment.</p>

<p>On the other hand, most public institutions probably take in less tuition revenue per student (net of institutional financial aid) than the top privates.</p>

11

<p>Time has come to give serious thought about forming the Xiggi University? Any donors around here?</p>

<p>Fwiw, as Dirksen might have said, “A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you’re talking real money”.</p>

<p>PS Any bets about how long it will take for Alexandre to set Goldie’s statistics straight. You know, the Texas is really poor and Michigan is really rich! In the meantime, is there anyone who’d like to guesstimate what all that “Texas wild acreage” will ultimately be worth above its current appraisal?</p>

12

<p>Where is the other 10 billion of UT system allocated? I see Texas A&M system has 7.8 billion or so and Texas A&M seems to have 5.9 billion.</p>

13

<p>

</p>

<p>The Texas A&M number is not part of the UT System endowment - it’s already reported separately in the Texas A&M System and Foundations #. Even though both system endowments are managed together by UTIMCO, since the late 90s the UT and Texas A&M Systems have reported their endowments separately - hence the current $17B for UT and $7B for Texas A&M. (If you look at historical endowment figures prior to this, it looked like the UT System endowment was much larger than Yale’s endowment for this reason.)</p>

<p>Of the UT System endowment, after UT-Austin’s portion (~$7B), the major UT Medical Schools and UT MD Anderson Cancer Center have ~$1B endowments. After these, it’s a large dropoff for the other institutions. However, it’s not entirely accurate to discount the system number for the individual institutions since the strength of the System endowments is why large capital expenditures can be undertaken relatively easily throughout the system. It’s also the reason UT was the first and one of only 3 public universities (incl Michigan and UVA) to have AAA debt ratings by all the rating agencies.</p>

14

<p>I understand the part that UT and A&M are separate endowments and I have read stories about the guy who manages UTIMCO. My question was why A&M system number drops only 2 Billion when it comes to College station alone vs UT system drops 10 billion when it comes down to UT Austin.</p>

<p>It sounds like billion dollars each are allocated to UT medical schools and MD Anderson?</p>

15

<p>

</p>

<p>As bclintonk said, endowment per student is just as misleading - if not more so - than total endowment. A small school with a high endowment/student number could have a very small absolute endowment, with little power to take on large-scale building/research/faculty recruitment projects, etc. It’s also more likely to have a lower debt rating than the much larger endowments overseen by large professional mangement teams, which makes it that much harder to take on large endeavors. One can play up endowment/student all they want, but looking at the resources of the universities with the largest endowments - per student endowment means little in terms of the ability to compete for resources like top faculty, research centers, state of the art buildings, libraries, etc.</p>

16

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</p>

<p>It’s primarily just because the A&M system is much smaller. Even though the UT System gets 2/3 of the PUF portion of the UTIMCO endowment and the A&M system only 1/3, it results in Texas A&M College Station getting a relatively larger portion than UT Austin just due to their relative system sizes and institutional focuses.</p>

17

<p>

UT Austin controls 45% of the UT system endowment. With a 2011 figure of $17,148,649, that would be $7,716,892. If memory serves, Texas A&M controls about 50% of the A&M budget, resulting in an endowment of $3.5 billion ([this</a> source](<a href=“http://www.chem.tamu.edu/academics/prospective_graduate_students/area.php]this”>http://www.chem.tamu.edu/academics/prospective_graduate_students/area.php) seems to support that).</p>

<p>

You must subtract at least some money for Flint and Dearborn. Subtracting $80 million gives a figure of $7,754,752,000, slipping Michigan below Columbia and just above UT Austin.</p>

<p>

Bryn Athyn is frequently cited here. Its endowment is fairly modest (about the same as Wooster’s), but it seems quite large due to its tiny student body (1/10 as many students as Wooster). With $1 million per student, it would rank between Stanford and MIT on a per capita basis.</p>

18

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<p>True, but a small LAC does not need a 10 million volume library. It isn’t trying to support the same level of original research across as many fields. </p>

<p>The general point about economies of scale is well taken, though I don’t think it’s clear how and to what extent it applies. Certainly, most colleges do eventually build new buildings (libraries, science centers); a big building generally costs less per square foot than a small one of equal quality.</p>

<p>I think the best use of endowment numbers is to compare EPS among institutions of similar type and size.</p>

19

<p>“I think the best use of endowment numbers is to compare EPS among institutions of similar type and size.”</p>

<p>I agree 100%. Comparing endowment per student at a public vs a private makes no sense because publics are larger and have state funding. Comparing endowment per student at a small private with no medical school to that of a large private with a pronounced medical complex also makes no sense.</p>

20

<p>The point re: economies of scale is especially important, but I’ll add that comparison is even more difficult when you don’t compare the real total “wealth” of universities. The endowment is only a small piece of a university’s spending; AFAIK no university pays for more than half of their budget with endowment funds (I believe Harvard is the highest, at ~40%; at Stanford, it’s 20-25%). You have to consider their other sources of funding, which make up the majority of funding: research funds from the government (which frees up university funds for other purposes), fundraising from donations, royalties from licensed technologies (e.g. the “endowment equivalent” of what MIT or Stanford receive in royalties each year is $1.2b - $1.4b), and tuition, which makes up the bulk of funding at most universities. For public institutions, you also have to take into account state funding.</p>

<p>Once you do that, you can start to look at “financial resources per capita,” but even that’s flawed, because you can’t separate grad/undergrad, and more importantly, you can’t really tell what counts as “student spending” at all. For example, half of Stanford’s $4 billion budget is spent on salaries/benefits for employees; would you consider this “student spending”? How directly does a resource need to be spent on students for it to be considered in such calculations?</p>

<p>So in the end, it makes little sense to even attempt to compare with these metrics, because there’s no “right” way to do it.</p>