<p>At 34.9 billion, Harvard's endowment is about 55% larger than Yale's 22.5 billion; at 20,042 total students (Harvard</a> University Office of News and Public Affairs | Harvard at a Glance) Harvard's student body is about 77% larger than Yale's (11,358 total students--see <a href="http://www.yale.edu/about/facts.html)%5B/url%5D">http://www.yale.edu/about/facts.html)</a>. Thus, Yale has significantly more endowment per student than Harvard (and given that the cost of educating graduate students is typically twice that of educating undergrads, and Harvard skews much more heavily toward graduate students, Yale has an even greater advantage over Harvard in terms of endowment per undergrad--in fact, only Princeton has more endowment per undergrad than Yale, and only slightly more). In short, both Yale and Princeton should not only be able to match Harvard's recent Financial Aid initiative, they should be able to up the ante even further. Sure, Yale's total endowment consists of 8,000+ dedicated endowments (Yale</a> Daily News - Endowment may enable aid reforms%5DYale">http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/22834)), but the same holds true for Harvard (and Princeton).</p>
<p>As yet, I have seen no reliable evidence that Harvard has more endowment to spend per undergrad than Yale. In the comment section of the above cited Yale Daily News article, a poster claims that Princeton FA is 100% endowed, while Harvard's is 68% endowed and Yale's less than 50% endowed. Can anyone substantiate these figures? If there are marked differences in FA endowment between HYP (and S, for that matter), I think this would be an interesting area of investigation and discussion.</p>