IT is hard to walk through Princeton University and not come across the fruits of its endowment. Many of the books lining the 50 miles of shelves in Firestone Library were bought through gifts. Its museum is rich with works from ancient Rome, China and Africa, courtesy of endowment dollars. The elaborate gardens surrounding the faculty club are replanted regularly.
Princeton’s $15.8 billion endowment not only dwarfs its operating budget but also generates enough income to pay for nearly half of it. It may not have the largest pot (Harvard, Yale and Stanford have more), but it has more money per student — $2.2 million — than any other university that enrolls undergraduates. Princeton spends about 4 percent of its endowment a year, which comes to about $90,000 for every single student.
As Princeton’s provost, Christopher L. Eisgruber, puts it in a pamphlet explaining the endowment: “Our endowment gives us the capacity to do many things that other universities can only dream about.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/ed...in&oref=slogin
graphic showing princeton's supremacy in resources per student:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...on_graphic.gif
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