Top 15 university endowments – 1994 compared with 2004

Parents Forum
1

<p>FY 1994</p>

<li> Harvard U $6,201,220</li>
<li> U of Texas System 4,549,214</li>
<li> Yale U 3,529,000</li>
<li> Princeton U 3,446,818</li>
<li> Stanford U(1) 2,750,774</li>
<li> Emory U 1,691,166</li>
<li> Texas A&M U System and Foundations 2,055,808</li>
<li> Columbia U 1,918,148</li>
<li> U of California 1,750,203</li>
<li> Massachusetts Inst of Technology 1,777,777</li>
<li> Washington U 1,737,957</li>
<li> U of Pennsylvania 1,464,455</li>
<li> Rice U 1,278,524</li>
<li> Cornell U 1,248,980</li>
<li> Northwestern U 1,275,412</li>
</ol>

<hr>

<p>FY 2004</p>

<li>Harvard U $22,143,649 </li>
<li>Yale U $12,747,15 </li>
<li>U of Texas System $10,336,687</li>
<li>Princeton U $9,928,200</li>
<li>Stanford U $9,922,000 </li>
<li>Massachusetts Inst of Technology $5,865,212 </li>
<li>U of California $4,767,466</li>
<li>Emory U $4,535,587</li>
<li>Columbia U $4,493,085 </li>
<li>Texas A&M U System and Fdns $4,373,047 </li>
<li>U of Michigan $4,163,382</li>
<li>U of Pennsylvania $4,018,660 </li>
<li>Washington U in St Louis $4,000,823 </li>
<li>Northwestern U $3,668,405</li>
<li>U of Chicago $3,620,728</li>
</ol>

2

<p>I think it would be more helpful to break it down to private and "public" universities- size of school is also helpful for comparision as is ratio of graduate students to undergrad.
Increasing level of endowment as opposed to decreasing might also be of interest to students looking at colleges
For instance the local U has over $1.3 billion in endowment- 10 years ago the figure was under $300 million</p>

3

<p>Look for Nebraska to make the list when Warren Buffet sends some largesse their way. Of course, Gates is well positioned to keep Harvard in the lead. </p>

<p>I believe per student it is still Princeton in first.</p>

4

<p>The overall order among the 15 largest endowments has changed little, although two schools - Cornell and Rice - have dropped out, having been replaced by the U of Michigan and the U of Chicago.</p>

<p>Some schools have seen proportionalely larger increases however.</p>

<p>Herewith, a ranking by the multiple of the 1994 endowment reached with the 2004 endowment:</p>

<p>Yale: 3.61
Stanford: 3.60
Harvard: 3.57
MIT: 3.29
Northwestern: 2.88
Princeton: 2.88
Penn: 2.74
U of California: 2.72
Emory: 2.68
Columbia: 2.34
U of Texas: 2.27
WUStL: 2.30
Texas A & M: 2.13</p>

5

<p>Yes, Princeton is still highest in $/student.</p>

6

<p>(Earlier data not available on FTE basis)</p>

<p>FY 1998: (in thousands)</p>

<ol>
<li>Princeton: $701</li>
<li>Rice: $507</li>
<li>Harvard: $498</li>
<li>Swarthmore: $461</li>
<li>Yale: $448</li>
<li>Grinnell: $447</li>
<li>CalTech: $417</li>
<li>Pomona: $345</li>
<li>McAlaster: $ 296</li>
<li>Emory: $295</li>
</ol>

<hr>

<p>FY 2004 (in thousands):</p>

<ol>
<li>Princeton: $1,492</li>
<li>Harvard: $1,226</li>
<li>Yale: $1,133</li>
<li>Grinnell: $862</li>
<li>Pomona: $755</li>
<li>Stanford; $745</li>
<li>Swarthmore; $720</li>
<li>Rice; $685</li>
<li>Williams: $678</li>
<li>Amherst; $612</li>
</ol>

7

<p>The 2004 FTE endowment numbers are up by the stated multiple of the 1998 numbers:</p>

<p>Yale: 2.52
Harvard: 2.46
Pomona: 2.19
Princeton: 2.13
Grinnell: 1.93
Swarthmore: 1.56
Rice: 1.35</p>

<hr>

<p>These 3 schools dropped out of the top 10 in FTE endowment: CalTech, McAlaster, Emory.</p>

<p>These 3 schools were ADDED to the top 10 in FTE endowment: Stanford, Williams, Amherst.</p>

8

<p>The per student endowments are key to understanding "prestige". These endowments generate per student spending above and beyond the tuition revenue. Spend more; offer a nicer product to the consumer, whether it be in faculty/student ratio, more recruited diversity, fancier dorms, etc. Thus, this endowment spending is, in effect, a merit scholarship for each and every student attending the school. A very large merit scholarship for each and every student at the schools high on these lists.</p>

<p>With a few exceptions, I think you will find that "per student endowment" is a very close proxy for the USNEWs rankings, although there is a bit of a lag between the time "new money" schools (Duke, Emory, UWash, etc.) get their money and when they have effectively spent it to raise their presige following the model laid out by Leland Stanford.</p>

<p>One piece of simple college selection advice: All things being equal, if you are torn between two schools, pick the one with the bigger per student endowment.</p>

9

<p>This is interesting
I was suprised to see the number of LACs in the list of schools whose endowments total over 1 billion.
according to this accounting- there are 47 altogether.
<a href="http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/nationworld/story/4885904p-4479735c.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/nationworld/story/4885904p-4479735c.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

10

<p>actually that was saying there are 47 universities and LACs that have over $1 billion. only 5 LACs have over $1 billion however: Grinnell, Williams, Wellesley, Pomona, and Swarthmore</p>

11

<p>
[quote]
I was suprised to see the number of LACs in the list of schools whose endowments total over 1 billion.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>It doesn't take long walking around campus at some of the top LACs to start to figure out that they have a lot of money. The boutique scale at which they operate is very expensive and many of them have a showplace campus.</p>

12

<p>Page 2 of the following PDF has a chart of per student endowments as of June 2003.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.williams.edu/alumni/campaign/about/WilliamsCoolidge_financial.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.williams.edu/alumni/campaign/about/WilliamsCoolidge_financial.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>It's not a complete list (they left off Emory, for example), but it's a good snapshot.</p>

13

<p>well I have to admit that I have become a little jaded re schools
My older daughter attended private school K-12 including where the Gates and the Bezos currently have kids- and after spending time there it is easy to forget that some public schools don't have books for students and teachers are spending their own money for copy paper.
Where she is attending college is gorgeous and I am sure its endowment is up there- but I never thought of it to be on the scale of someplace like Harvard- which has so much going on at the grad school level</p>

14

<p>The Harvard endowment is a little tricky to evaluate. Although it is managed as a unit, it really consists of separate endowments for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Medical School, the Law School, the Kennedy School of Government, and so forth.</p>

<p>The numbers I found just on a quick search for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (undergrad and academic grad schools) show an endowment of about $8 billion (2003). With 10,000 students, that's about $800,000 per student, somewhere between Pomona and Grinnell. </p>

<p>Even that is probably not that cut and dried because many of the Harvard extracurriculars (like their community service organization) have their own endowments on top of the FAS endowment.</p>

15

<p>To me, the two big numbers are not endowment, or even endowment per student, but amount spent per student attending (which is nonetheless iffy because the smaller the enrollment, the higher the cost of maintenance and library books and etc. has to be spread over those students), and financial grants-in-aid per student attending. </p>

<p>Other than that (which is how earnings on the endowment are spent), endowment is pretty useless except in launching expensive new programs. To argue, for example, that the academic program or quality of campus life at Swarthmore (or Grinnell or Wellesley for that matter) is substantially better than that at Haverford based on the size of the endowment (Haverford's being less than one-third of the others) to me borders on the patently absurd.</p>

16

<p>As for Harvard, here is the breakdown of the endowment as of 2003. (Since then, the endowment has increased by more than 15%)</p>

<p>Market Value of Endowment at June 30, 2003
(Latest breakdown available)
Faculty of Arts and Sciences $8,743,246,000
Business School 1,330,368,000
Dental Medicine School 120,992,000
Design School 244,803,000
Divinity School 346,614,000
Education School 294,038,000
Kennedy School 582,141,000
Law School 927,308,000
Medical School 2,094,252,000
Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study 289,939,000
Public Health School 633,753,000
Other Academic Departments 742,188,000
Central Administration 2,210,885,000
Service Departments 73,647,000
Pledge balances 445,244,000
Interests in perpetual trusts held by others 215,317,00
Total $19,294,735,000</p>

<p>Given that the interest of the FAS students in "central administration, 'service departmenhts", "pledge balances" etc is at least 50%, this gets the total applicable to the "College and FAS" tlo about $10.5 billion, or roughly $12 billion as of FY 2004. This translates into roughly the same $1,225,000 per FTE fas or the university as a whole.</p>

17

<p>So? they're still 26th. They could spend money to fix it (the students have told them quite clearly what they are unhappy about in the academic program), but they make a choice not to. </p>

<p>Thanks for helping make my point.</p>

18

<p>This tells you where the extra money comes from to support superior faculty salaries, better facilities, higher need-based financial aid, etc. </p>

<p>My recollection is that in the 2005-6 budgets, Princeton books about 37% of the operating budget from endowment earnings, Harvard 34%, and Yale 32%. I think this is based on a 5% "draw" at Princeton and Harvard, and a 5.25% draw at Yale. </p>

<p>Not many schools approach this level. At Stanford, for example, about 16% of the operatingf budget is paid from endowment earnings.</p>

19

<p>If I had included them, both Exeter and Andover - only prep schools - would have outranked Williams and Amherst respectively on the list of schools with the highest FTE per capita endowments. Their enrollment is only a little over 1,000 in each case.</p>

20

<p>Interesting - when we were at UofCh, the adcom said that their endowment was so low that the Prz is starting a drive to boost it because htey had lost so many good candidates because they were unable to offer the type of FA other schools were giving. Very few merit scholarships, as well.</p>