The endowments of the University of Cambridge and Oxford have been recently updated. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Cambridge
The University of Cambridge has an endowment fund of £5.89 billion($9.01 billion)
The University of Oxford has an endowment fund of £4.355 billion($6.7 billion)
Are both universities considered rich by us standards and are they on par with most Ivies(Harvard, Princeton, Yale etc…)?
Harvard and Yale are pretty much in a class by themselves but those UK schools have decent endowments.
How do you think Cambridge and Oxford would rank vs most ivies/top schools in the united states? Would you say they are on par or a step down most top schools in the us?
They both receive massive government funding. They are public institutions.
You’re trying to compare apples and oranges here. You just can’t compare public UK schools with private US schools like that- they’re a different animal.
Would you say that a fairer comparison would be with top us public schools(UCB,UCLA,Michigan)? Does that mean Cambridge and Oxford are sub par in comparison to top us private schools?
You are making the false assumption that public is by definition inferior to private. That is not true, certainly when you are looking at a country with a different social system than the US.
Endowment size is not necessarily an indictor of how good a university is. A degree from OxBridge is recognized worldwide as one of the most prestigious degrees you could have, just as Harvard’s is. OxBridge is on the same level as HYPSM.
Just to make my question simpler would there be many private schools in the US that can claim to be richer than Oxford and Cambridge? If so how do Oxford and Cambridge rank among those schools? Are Oxford and Cambridge considered poor in comparison to most Ivies and top private schools in the us?
Again you are comparing apples and oranges. Look up the endowments for US schools and do the comparison. The UK is a socialized country.
What about endowment growth rate Oxford and Cambridge’s endowment funds are growing at a rate of £300 million to £600 million( $415 million to $920 million)per year. How does this compare to most ivies/top us schools?
Cambridge’s ambition is too grow at a rate of £1 billion per year($1.55 billion). Would this put it on par with ivies?
UK universities are heavily subsidized by the UK government. Tuition is in range of $13,000 and true cost is probably similar to that of elite private colleges in the US. I’m not sure to what extent endowment matters. What does matter is academics - who teaches, class size, the strength of your fellow students, career opportunities post graduation. The UK program is 3 years compared to the US 4 so this adds complexity in academic comparisons. All this said Oxford and Cambridge are the equals of very top US universities. They are also very selective.
A huge endowment gives institutions a great deal of freedom and money to spend on different needs.Institutions with sizable endowments can attract the very best students and professors and also give more generous financial aid packages. Cambridge and Oxford want to compete with the very best us institutions therefore wants to emulate their huge endowment size. It’s basically a mines bigger than yours competition, I just want to know how Oxford and Cambridge are faring amongst the very best in the us.
You should be able to do this research on your own.
Well I’ve done my research and here are the top 12 us universities(excluding systems):
Harvard University-$35.883 billion
Yale University-$23.9 billion
Stanford University-$24.446 billion
Princeton University-$20.996 billion
MIT-$12.425 billion
Northwestern University-$10.5 billion
University of Michigan-$10.05 billion
University of Notre Dame-$9.8 billion
University of Pennsylvania-$9.6 billion
Columbia University-$9.223 billion
University of Chicago-$7.5 billion
Duke University-$7 billion
The university of Cambridge at its current value would rank 11 and Oxford would rank 13. Not even in the top 10 that’s pretty disappointing although if the value of the pound went up to $1.6 per pound as it usually does then Cambridge would rank 10 and oxford would equal duke. Still very disappointing performance overall.
Endowment per Student at Selected Colleges (Reach High Scholars, 2014)
(Pomona seems to have been mistakenly omitted.)
To add ivies endowment growth rate is around $2 billion to $3 billion which makes Cambridge and oxfords growth rate between $450 million to $918 seem small. Even if Cambridge reaches it’s goal of £1 billion($1.53 billion) the university would still be trailing the the ivies. In the future when Harvard’s endowment reaches $70 billion then Cambridge and Oxford would have a $30-$35 billion. They would all be very rich though but still it’s going to be hard to seriously compete with the ivies unless all of a sudden 60% of Oxbridge students start donating(currently at 10%), Oxford and Cambridge have no chance of keeping up.
+merc81 Endowment per student is a great measure of prestige however small institutions have less of an impact on the academic world in general. You should add Trinity college, Cambridge to the list it has an endowment of
£1.08 billion($1.65 billion) only 1050 students. Endowment per student of $1,571,428 including 32 Nobel laureates and a huge reputation I would say trinity college on its own is comparable to Caltech. It would list at 4 on your list.
Your logic that a larger endowment = a better school is flawed. OxBridge will both have small endowments inherently because they are funded through the British government, not through absurdly high tuition or private donors. That doesn’t mean they’re inferior. Oxford is consistently ranked within the top 3 universities in the world by various sources, with Cambridge not far after. What you’re trying to suggest with your comments on this thread is totally nonsensical.