<p>bluebayou,
While family incomes may not sway Peer Assessment there does seem to be a high correlation between high per capita endowment and Peer Assessment scores. </p>
<p>I looked at the USNWR Top 30 National Universities. I took out the five publics as they are definitely loved by the PA scorers for their research capabilities and this factor is much stronger than their comparatively much weaker endowment per capita numbers. As the numbers below demonstrate, for the remaining 25 privates, the top 5 are all scored at 4.9. The bottom 5 include a 3.5. a 3.7 and a 3.9 (along with a 4.1 and a 4.2). Among the top 10, schools that are relatively low for PA score are Rice (academics tend not to like Texans?), and Notre Dame (academics tend not to like religious institutions and definitely not Catholics!). </p>
<p>Here is the full data:</p>
<p>Rank per capita for endowment, School, PA score, endowment per capita</p>
<p>1 Princeton 4.9 $ 1,881,024
2 Harvard 4.9 $ 1,728,891
3 Yale 4.9 $ 1,570,199
4 Stanford 4.9 $ 1,243,680
5 MIT 4.9 $ 819,916
6 Rice 4.1 $ 801,980
7 Cal Tech 4.7 $ 728,200
8 Dartmouth 4.4 $ 537,476
9 U Chicago 4.7 $ 457,382
10 Notre Dame 3.9 $ 403,403
11 Emory 4 $ 394,717
12 Wash U StL 4.1 $ 387,136
13 Duke 4.5 $ 385,079
14 J Hopkins 4.6 $ 383,858
15 Northwestern 4.4 $ 302,322
16 Brown 4.4 $ 266,663
17 Vanderbilt 4.1 $ 253,846
18 Columbia 4.6 $ 243,184
19 U Penn 4.5 $ 224,151
20 Cornell 4.6 $ 220,032
21 Wake Forest 3.5 $ 157,439
22 Tufts 3.7 $ 137,615
23 USC 3.9 $ 92,907
24 Carnegie Mellon 4.2 $ 92,844
25 Georgetown 4.1 $ 73,569 </p>
<pre><code>PUBLICS
U Virginia 4.3 $ 150,331
U Michigan 4.5 $ 141,331
UC Berkeley 4.7 $ 65,558
UCLA 4.3 $ 50,898
U North Carolina 4.2 $ 45,284
</code></pre>