New figures on university endowments

[MU Chi_IL]

The latest endowment figures from NACUBO were released and there are now 76 colleges and universities with endowments that have passed $1 billion — including 16 new members of that club like Georgetown and the Universities of Oklahoma and Missouri.

But five at the top each have nearly $6 billion more than any school outside that group: Harvard ($34.6 billion), Yale ($22.5 billion), Stanford ($17.2 billion), Princeton ($15.8 billion) and the University of Texas system ($15.6 billion).

Among them, Harvard's endowment — the largest overall — expanded by an amount last year that's more than Ivy League rival Cornell has altogether. Princeton now has over $2 million in the bank for every student. Stanford raised nearly $1 billion during its last reported fiscal year alone.

Marquette ranks 180 with 360,250,000 up 19.6% from 2006

http://www.nacubo.org/Images/All%20Institutions%20Listed%20by%20FY%202007%20Market%20Value%20of%20Endowment%20Assets_2007%20NES.pdf

[mu_hilltopper]

While I'm sure a lot of Harvard, Yale, etc's growth is due to investment gains .. wouldn't you feel a little silly giving money to Harvard?  If you were in advancement @ Harvard, wouldn't you feel silly asking for money?

Plus .. Man, $34.6b .. That's $3b/year of investment income, easy.  They bring in (19k enrollment x $40k/year) $760m from tuition.  Why bother charging tuition?  They could give everyone a free ride, and STILL have $2 BILLION left over each year.

[SoCalEagle]

Harvard and some other Ivies, as well as other top tier universities have been giving major tuition breaks to students who meet certain income criteria.  It's a trend that will probably continue given some of these large endowments.  I agree, why charge tuition at all with $36B in the bank?

[DegenerateDish]

These numbers are just staggering and mind blowing.

$34.6 billion to sit on? I know that endowments have limits on what you can do with the money based on the donor's criteria, but that number is just....wow.

Completely agree, it seems so silly to charge 40k a year at this point. Supply and demand I guess.

[reinko]

I live in Boston, and one plan Harvard has for a chunk of it's endowment is a bascially a brand new campus on the other side of the Charles rumored to cost in 3-4 billion range.

Crazy money!

[sean980]

For those who have not seen it yet, Marquette just received another $25 million donation for the Engineering School.  Jsonline reported it on 01/29.

[MU Chi_IL]

I just took a look at Davidson's website to learn a little more about the school and noticed that they have an endowment of $487 million as of June 30, 2007, beating MU's $360 mil.  That is impressive given the size of the school.

[mwbauer7]

I just took a look at Davidson's website to learn a little more about the school and noticed that they have an endowment of $487 million as of June 30, 2007, beating MU's $360 mil.  That is impressive given the size of the school.

The real question is: does that say more about their impressive endowment, our MU's rather paltry endowment?

[mu-rara]

I just took a look at Davidson's website to learn a little more about the school and noticed that they have an endowment of $487 million as of June 30, 2007, beating MU's $360 mil.  That is impressive given the size of the school.

The real question is: does that say more about their impressive endowment, our MU's rather paltry endowment?

Maybe if MU quit screwing with the Alumni........