<p>I’ve been perplexed by their cutting actually. I went back and found some public quotes about endowment size from 1998 and figured the 10-yr compounded growth since (actually 11 since it’s 2009) and compared it to other Ivy Leagues. </p>
<p>This was acutally earlier this year when the predictions were dire BEFORE the market rebounded somewhat. I was using the gloomy predictions then of what the endowment return would be for fiscal 2009 which for most of these places ends June 30:</p>
<p>1998-2009
Harvard: 7.0%
Princeton: 7.6%
Penn: 3.6%
COlumbia 4.5%</p>
<p>Note the S&P 500 is down in the same time frame.
Now this isn’t investment returns strictly - it reflects donations and spending too, but my point is: Harvard has had years of superb growth that 1 bad year, even if very bad (-30% was the prediction earlier this year), would not wipe it all out.</p>
<p>My take is that they are fat and have been spending like drunken sailors thinking the endowment growth was permanent.</p>