<p>I don’t know how accurate those numbers are, but regardless, it sounds like the endowment is very well invested. </p>
<p>It is possible though that the numbers are correct. For example even though he references the S&P 500 in the article (as the average performance in the “market”) it is very likely that USC’s investments don’t mirror the S&P index (and thus could be hit less hard, especially if they did not choose financial stocks) and so the “potential 13%” hit he refers to would be the total drop in USC’s equity shares (not the market index) and the 1.2% drop would be including return from bonds and the like</p>
<p>Since they’re investing for the long-term gain, market fluctuations like this don’t really affect the investments as much as you might think. Over 15, 20, 25 years equity investments often can really pay off like that, and just eat the losses when the market crashes. It worked for Warren Buffett :)</p>
<p>On the side, I suppose one interesting thing I heard the other day, was that the USC Credit Union has never foreclosed on a mortage in its history - now that’s impressive :)</p>