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<p>The actual endowment of a university is split amongst thousands of smaller funds for specific purposes and can only be used as directed by the donors at the point of pledging/bequest.</p>
<p>Donors specify what they want their money to go to, which is hard to say what is the exact amount spent one item like “student needs” if the endowment is a huge collection of donor funds which restricted because donors impose restrictions…</p>
<p>“All of the endowments that we have are restricted in ways that won’t allow us to do that, original endowment of the university that can’t be spent or earnings on endowments who use is restricted. We’re not allowed to take the existing university endowment to boost financial aid if it was donated to fund an endowed chair.”</p>
<p>[Colleges</a> Fight Calls to Dip Further Into Endowments : NPR](<a href=“http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18615525]Colleges”>Colleges Fight Calls to Dip Further Into Endowments : NPR)</p>
<p>That is why endowment per student is not useful if you don’t know the how many sub funds are out there and how they are being utilized.</p>