<p>My little spreadsheet of financials calculates *per student endowment *and per student net endowment (after subtracting debt). So, I’ve been following that for selected liberal arts colleges.</p>
<p>For the most part, it doesn’t change much as debt is pretty similar across the board as a percentage of the endowment. Amherst is the only top LAC that pulled a sleight of hand, borrowing $100 million in taxable debt to cover cash needs instead of liquidating more of their endowment. IMO, they are basically over-stating their endowment by that $100 million. They are a perfect example of turning a silk purse into a sow’s ear, getting greedy and being unable to meet their monster private equity cash calls when the market tanked. They won’t even put their current enrollment on their website because they’ve cut faculty and signficantly grown the student body to balance the budget. They don’t want anybody to see, I guess. Kinda crazy that you can’t find out how many students attend a college, but it is what it is, I guess.</p>
<p>Here are top five LACs for 2010 in per student endowment. Note that I have not updated the enrollment numbers as they are not available for all the schools yet (ahem…).</p>
<p>Curious – could you please elaborate? Would it be superior fund-raising or superior investing? If it’s the latter, I’d like to copy what they do!</p>
<p>The reason most people don’t go the extent of subtracting debt from endowment in order to determine a school’s overall wealth is because it then begs the further question of what exactly are the present value of its buildings and plant? In most cases, it amounts to a wash, unless of course, you’re talking about borrowing to pay for operating costs – which is what Amherst does.</p>
<p>Don;t see why arboretums or golf courses or parking garages make much difference to the student, though they can significantly show up in endowments.</p>
<p>There’s a point at which higher endowments per student meet the laws of diminishing return.</p>
<p>Many Wisconsin students would disagree. The arb is very popular for running and relaxing in warm weather and CC skiing in winter. Golf is also great if you learn to play it cheap in college. Still the sport of business. Many students take a class or lessons. Parking is needed if you commute but they usually pay for themselves. Plus takes much less space than big open lots. If you work off campus it’s often nice to have a car.</p>
<p>4th floor while I don’t have any connection to Stanford the reasons Iwould cite are:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Stanford consistently raises more money than any other school including Harvard
[Stanford</a> is top fundraiser among U.S. colleges in 2009 | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times](<a href=“Archive blogs”>Archive blogs)</p></li>
<li><p>As cited earlier Stanford’s invested assets net of debt are considerably higher than Princeton or Yale</p></li>
<li><p>I believe the endowments of Harvard Yale and Princeton still have problems that need to be dealt with</p></li>
<li><p>the concentration of new technolgy on the west coast</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Thanks for the data, sm74 (post #203^). Another way to look at this: what’s the ratio of debt to endowment? Or, if you will, what percentage of endowment is effectively “offset” by debt obligations? Most of these schools are in the 20% to 25% range, which (apart from potential liquidity issues and cash call liabilities not discernible in these data) seems manageable—even though in Harvard’s case we’re talking about a whopping $6.7 billion in debt, or more debt than the entire endowment at all but 5 other schools. </p>
<p>Other schools, like Cornell (45.5%), Chicago (41.8%), Emory (41.7%), Duke (39.6%), Northwestern (33.9%), Dartmouth (33.3%), and Virginia (33.3%), are more aggressive in their debt-to-endowment ratio. Most conservative: Notre Dame (9.6%).</p>
<p>Last column represents debt as % of endowment value:</p>
<p>Many of the largest hedge funds are getting crushed and are closing. Every day brings a new story of insider trading, a ponzi scheme, inflated asset valuations, collusion. World is finally waking up to the fact that the emporer has no clothes.</p>
<p>Endowment problems and significantly increased demand for financial aid by recession ravaged families causing even the wealthies U’s to change blind admission policies.</p>
<p>Calpers is the big daddy of institutional investors and their entire alternative investment area(hedge funds,real estate,private equity) is making major changes suggesting that they are dealing with big problems in those kinds of investments that make up the vast majority of endowment investments.</p>
<p>More evidence of the intense rivalry developing between Harvard and Stanford. I’m sure it would be pretty embarrasing if Harvard could not raise what Stanford already did, meanwhile Yale falls short of its goal.</p>
<p>PE valuation issues addressed in this article should begin to see the light of day with news out that TXU-one of the largest PE buyouts in history-is going into default on its bonds. The equity will be wiped out but only 2 months ago TPG had its sizeable investment marked at an implausable 40 cents on the dollar.</p>
<p>Update on status of HYP. Seems to suggest ta YP are in worse condition than H. Would agree with that and that Harvard has been more diligent in addressing their issues but still think Harvard is not out of the woods.</p>
<p>For example, HYP are all increasing PE allocations not out of choice but because demands from PE firms to meet cash calls on committments continues to be larger than exits.</p>
<p>Seems that HYPS and some government pension funds are making some fellows awfully rich. Chump change though compared to the kind of money the private equity guys are making. No wonder about every HYPS graduate makes a bee-line for this world.</p>