<p>The only students with 400K in debt should be those in an expensive med school program and who went to an expensive private undergrad college mainly on loans.</p>
<p>[Yale</a> endowment earns 4.7 percent return - News - Boston.com](<a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/local/connecticut/2012/09/27/yale-endowment-earns-percent-return/6UXMwWL3p0T59nudmhOztN/story.html]Yale”>http://www.boston.com/news/local/connecticut/2012/09/27/yale-endowment-earns-percent-return/6UXMwWL3p0T59nudmhOztN/story.html)</p>
<p>Yale endowment down $100M. Big time endowments running between 4% down(Harvard) and 4% up(MIT). Schools like Harvard and Penn that actually have publicly traded assets not doing as well as Universties that have mainly assets that they get to make up what they think the assets are worth.</p>
<p>[Grinnell</a>, one of the country’s wealthiest colleges, questions sustainability of financial aid | Inside Higher Ed](<a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/10/01/grinnell-one-countrys-wealthiest-colleges-questions-sustainability-financial-aid]Grinnell”>Grinnell, one of the country's wealthiest colleges, questions sustainability of financial aid)</p>
<p>Needs blind admission didnt last long</p>
<p>Grinnell is squeezed. Wow.</p>
<p>Location, location, location.</p>
<p>I think that Grinnell, like Wesleyan, is acting from a position of strength, fully realizing that need-blind is unsustainable. Neither of these institutions are even close to being in a bad situation…yet. Smart guys realize trends before they happen.</p>
<p>Colleges could quickly improve their financial positions if they limited their handouts. If the list price is $55K, require everyone to pay at least $15K-$20K per year regardless of circumstances. Students whose parents cannot or will not help at all and who don’t want to take loans can go to cheaper schools.</p>
<p>I can fully understand colleges that have removed “no loan” policies in financial aid. Everyone should have some skin the game. It is perfectly logical to expect a student to take out the maximum allowed amount per year of federally subsidized loans - which comes out to about $21K over 4 years. If the college requires a student to take out another $2K of unsubsidized federal loans per year, that would come out to a total of about $29K, which is starting to get high, particularly because the interest rate is higher and starts accrueing while in college.</p>
<p><a href=“A Hard Landing for University Endowments - The New York Times”>A Hard Landing for University Endowments - The New York Times;
<p>Interesting article. Extract pasted below:</p>
<p>College and university endowment returns for the most recent fiscal year, which ended June 30, are starting to roll in. And in many cases, they warrant a grade of “C” at best, and in some cases, an “F.” Harvard reported a 0.05 percent loss and a drop in its endowment of over $1 billion in the same period, even as a simple Standard & Poor’s 500 index fund gained about 5.5 percent. Harvard’s endowment decline is more than the entire endowments of roughly 90 percent of all colleges and universities.</p>
<p>Message from Moody’s article re Grinnell’s possible strategy of encouraging more full pay admits and keeping need blind polices: middle class squeeze.</p>
<p>CT1417, great link.</p>
<p>[After</a> four years, still no faculty growth | Yale Daily News](<a href=“http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2012/oct/23/after-four-years-still-no-faculty-growth/]After”>http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2012/oct/23/after-four-years-still-no-faculty-growth/)</p>
<p>But how about the people who really count – administrators?</p>
<p><a href=“Financial Management | It's Your Yale”>Financial Management | It's Your Yale;
<p>Yale is one of the first ivies to publish their annual report. For us accounting geeks the annual report allows us to get a little bit beyond the hype and see whats really going on-cant hype the balance sheet.</p>
<p>Interesting thing is while Yale reported that its endowment was essentially flat, the details show that net invested assets actually declined by about $500Million. Interesting that the cause of the decline was actually a $400Million loan made to the endowment. I have stated in previous posts some wonder that Yale was one of the few Ivies not to borrow more money this year, but it looks like they did and found a way to do it so it doesnt show up on the balance sheet as debt. They state on page 22 that they then re-paid the debt in October of this year. Seems like an odd move to borrow such a significant sum before the end of the fiscal year then pay it back so soon. </p>
<p>Otherwise the allocations to asset classes mirror those of last year, with another 2% reduction in hedge funds(which of the tier 3 classes has the most liquidity) offset by a 2% increase in real estate which is the least liquid. </p>
<p>Net-net I think Yale is still struggling to get liquidity from its tier 3 investments. If anyone has an idea of why Yale would do the $400M borrow against its investments would like to hear it.</p>
<p>[Rich</a> Stuck as Salient Curbs Withdrawals for Investors - Businessweek](<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?)</p>
<p>Colleges not only ones having liquidity problems with endowment-type funds</p>
<p><a href=“http://vpf-web.harvard.edu/annualfinancial/pdfs/2012fullreport.pdf[/url]”>http://vpf-web.harvard.edu/annualfinancial/pdfs/2012fullreport.pdf</a></p>
<p>Harvard issues its annual report. First section does a good job of outlining the myriad of financial issues facing Universities now with Harvard being no exception. I like that they focus on net investments not endowment and address debt as well.</p>
<p>Harvard has talked about their interest in real assets and boy they sure are. Real assets gone from 17% of investments 2 years ago to 25% now. Quite a bet on real estate and timber.</p>
<p>[Harvard</a> 2012 annual financial report shows break-even year | Harvard Magazine](<a href=“http://harvardmagazine.com/2012/11/harvard-reports-break-even-financial-2012]Harvard”>http://harvardmagazine.com/2012/11/harvard-reports-break-even-financial-2012)</p>
<p>Harvard magazine’s sobering assessment of the state of Harvard’s finances</p>
<p>Another interesting article on the building boom on campuses and its impact on university and student debt.</p>
<p><a href=“Colleges’ Debt Falls on Students After Construction Binges - The New York Times”>Colleges’ Debt Falls on Students After Construction Binges - The New York Times;