List of colleges and universities in the

United States by endowment

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The following are three lists of U.S. institutions of higher education by endowment:
1. Largest endowments
2. Largest endowments per student
3. Certain universities by endowment growth between 1986 and 2007
Lists of institutions of higher education by endowment are also available.
This is an incomplete list, which may never be able to satisfy particular standards for
completeness. You can help by expanding it with reliably sourced entries.
This section may contain inaccurate data that does necessarily match with NACUBO source
data

Contents
[hide]

1 Endowments > $1 billion

2 Endowment per student
3 Certain institutions by endowment growth
4 References and footnotes

[edit] Endowments > $1 billion

For this list, short scale billions (thousand of millions) are used. [1][2][3][4][5]

Institution
Amherst College
Boston College
Brown University
California Institute
of Technology
Case Western
Reserve University

Endowment Endowment Endowment Endowment Endowment

(2005)
(2006)
(2007)
(2008)
(2009)
billion USD billion USD billion USD billion USD billion USD
$ 1.155[1]
$ 1.270[1]
$ 1.844[1]

$ 1.337[2]
$ 1.448[2]
$ 2.167[2]

$ 1.662[3]
$ 1.670[3]
$ 2.781[3]

$ 1.705[4]
$ 1.631[4]
$ 2.747[4]

$ 1.306[5]
$ 1.341[5]
$ 2.017[5]

$ 1.418[1]

$ 1.581[2]

$ 1.860[3]

$ 1.892[4]

$ 1.398[5]

$ 1.516[1]

$ 1.599[2]

$ 1.841[3]

$ 1.766[4]

$ 1.402[5]

Columbia University
Cornell University
Dartmouth College
Duke University
Emory University
George Washington
University
Grinnell College
Harvard University
Indiana University
(system-wide)[6]
Johns Hopkins
University
Massachusetts
Institute of
Technology
Michigan State
University
New York
University
Northwestern
University
Ohio State
University
Pennsylvania State
University
Pomona College
Princeton University
Purdue University
(system-wide)[6]
Rice University
Rockefeller
University
Smith College
Southern Methodist
University(SMU)
Stanford University
Swarthmore College
Texas A&M
University System
(system-wide)[6]
Tufts University
University of
California (system-

$ 5.191[1]
$ 3.777[1]
$ 2.714[1]
$ 3.826[1]
$ 4.376[1]

$ 5.938[2]
$ 4.321[2]
$ 3.092[2]
$ 4.498[2]
$ 4.870[2]

$ 7.150[3]
$ 5.425[3]
$ 3.760[3]
$ 5.910[3]
$ 5.562[3]

$ 7.147[4]
$ 5.385[4]
$ 3.660[4]
$ 6.124[4]
$ 5.473[4]

$ 5.893[5]
$ 3.966[5]
$ 2.825[5]
$ 4.441[5]
$ 4.328[5]

$ 0.823[1]

$ 0.963[2]

$ 1.147[3]

$ 1.256[4]

$ 1.011[5]

$ 1.391[1]
$ 25.473[1]

$ 1.472[2]
$ 28.916[2]

$ 1.718[3]
$ 34.635[3]

$ 1.472[4]
$ 36.556[4]

$ 1.076[5]
$ 25.662[5]

$ 1.107[1]

$ 1.276[2]

$ 1.557[3]

$ 1.546[4]

$ 1.227[5]

$ 2.177[1]

$ 2.351[2]

$ 2.800[3]

$ 2.525[4]

$ 1.977[5]

$ 6.712[1]

$ 8.368[2]

$ 9.980[3]

$ 10.069[4]

$ 7.982[5]

$ 0.906[1]

$ 1.048[2]

$ 1.248[3]

$ 1.282[4]

$ 1.047[5]

$ 1.548[1]

$ 1.775[2]

$ 2.162[3]

$ 2.475[4]

$ 2.094[5]

$ 4.215[1]

$ 5.141[2]

$ 6.503[3]

$ 7.244[4]

$ 5.445[5]

$ 1.726[1]

$ 1.997[2]

$ 2.338[3]

$ 2.076[4]

$ 1.652[5]

$ 1.175[1]

$ 1.326[2]

$ 1.590[3]

$ 1.545[4]

$ 1.226[5]

$ 1.299[1]
$ 11.207[1]

$ 1.457[2]
$ 13.045[2]

$ 1.761[3]
$ 15.787[3]

$ 1.794[4]
$ 16.349[4]

$ 1.334[5]
$ 12.614[5]

$ 1.341[1]

$ 1.494[2]

$ 1.787[3]

$ 1.736[4]

$ 1.458[5]

$ 3.611[1]

$ 3.986[2]

$ 4.670[3]

$ 4.610[4]

$ 3.613[5]

$ 1.557[1]

$ 1.772[2]

$ 2.144[4]

$ 2.021[4]

$ 1.528[5]

$ 1.036[1]

$ 1.156[2]

$ 1.361[3]

$ 1.366[4]

$ 1.096[5]

$ 1.014[1]

$ 1.122[2]

$ 1.328[3]

$ 1.368[4]

$ 1.035[5]

$ 12.205[1]
$ 1.164[1]

$ 14.085[2]
$ 1.245[2]

$ 17.165[3]
$ 1.441[3]

$ 17.200[4]
$ 1.413[4]

$ 12.619[5]
$ 1.129[5]

$ 4.964[1]

$ 5.643[2]

$ 6.590[3]

$ 6.659[4]

$ 5.084[5]

$ 0.845[1]

$ 1.215[2]

$ 1.452[3]

$ 1.446[4]

$ 1.103[5]

$ 5.222[1]

$ 5.734[2]

$ 6.439[3]

$ 6.217[4]

$ 4.937[5]

wide)[6]
University of
Chicago
University of
Delaware
University of Florida
(UF Foundation
only)
University of
Michigan
University of
Minnesota
University of
Minnesota
Foundation
University of North
Carolina at Chapel
Hill
University of Notre
Dame
University of
Pennsylvania
University of
Pittsburgh
University of Puerto
Rico (system-wide)
University of
Richmond
University of
Rochester
University of
Southern California
University of Texas
System (systemwide)[6]
University of
Virginia
University of
Washington
University of
WisconsinMadison
(UW Foundation
only)
Vanderbilt
University
Washington

$ 4.137[1]

$ 4.867[2]

$ 6.204[3]

$ 6.632[4]

$ 5.094[5]

$ 1.077[1]

$ 1.223[2]

$ 1.397[3]

$ 1.340[4]

$ 1.008[5]

$ 0.836[1]

$ 0.996[2]

$ 1.219[3]

$ 1.251[4]

$ 1.011[5]

$ 4.931[1]

$ 5.652[2]

$ 7.090[3]

$ 7.572[4]

$ 6.001[5]

n/a

n/a

$ 2.804[3]

$ 2.751[4]

$ 2.073[5]

$ 1.969[1]

$ 2.224[2]

n/a

n/a

$ 1.077[5]

$ 1.486[1]

$ 1.149[2]

$ 2.164[3]

$ 2.359[4]

$ 1.905[5]

$ 3.650[1]

$ 4.437[2]

$ 5.977[3]

$ 6.226[4]

$ 4.795[5]

$ 4.370[1]

$ 5.313[2]

$ 6.635[3]

$ 6.233[4]

$ 5.171[5]

$ 1.530[1]

$ 1.803[2]

$ 2.254[3]

$ 2.334[4]

$ 1.837[5]

$ 1.312[7]

$ 1.332[7]

$ 1.370[7]

$ 1.208[1]

$ 1.388[2]

$ 1.655[3]

$ 1.704[4]

$ 1.417[5]

$ 1.370[1]

$ 1.491[2]

$ 1.726[3]

$ 1.731[4]

$ 1.315[5]

$ 2.746[1]

$ 3.066[2]

$ 3.715[3]

$ 3.589[4]

$ 2.671[5]

$ 11.610[1]

$ 13.235[2]

$ 15.614[3]

$ 16.111[4]

$ 12.163[5]

$ 3.219[1]

$ 3.618[2]

$ 4.370[3]

$ 4.526[4]

$ 3.577[5]

$ 1.490[1]

$ 1.794[2]

$ 2.184[3]

$ 2.262[4]

$ 1.649[5]

$ 1.125[1]

$ 1.426[2]

$ 1.645[3]

$ 1.735[4]

$ 1.373[5]

$ 2.628[1]

$ 2.946[2]

$ 3.487[3]

$ 3.524[4]

$ 2.834[5]

$ 4.268[1]

$ 4.684[2]

$ 5.658[3]

$ 5.350[4]

$ 4.081[5]

University in St.
Louis
Wellesley College
Williams College
Yale University

$ 1.276[1]
$ 1.348[1]
$ 15.224[1]

$ 1.412[2]
$ 1.462[2]
$ 18.031[2]

$ 1.657[3]
$ 1.892[3]
$ 22.530[3]

$ 1.611[4]
$ 1.808[4]
$ 22.870[4]

$ 1.266[5]
$ 1.409[5]
$ 16.327[5]

[edit] Endowment per student

This section does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be
challenged and removed. (February 2007)

While total endowment size is a useful measurement of the wealth of a university, it is not
necessarily the best means of comparing the financial resources of different universities
because it does not take into account the size of the institution. For example, Emory
University's endowment may be more than four times larger than Smith's, but Emory's
endowment also has to support more than four times as many students. As a result, the two
schools have about the same amount of money to spend per student from their respective
endowments. That being said, comparing the size of endowments per student can
misrepresent the resources of smaller colleges because large universities can take better
advantage of economies of scale and are generally able to get better returns on their
investments. Further complicating comparisons is the cost of operating (see Cost of Living
Index http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0883960.html) at each school. Major metropolitan
areas, as well as unionized schools, generally cost more than rural and non-unionized schools.
Endowment to student ratios can also be misinterpreted when considering to what degree
dollars actually go to their students. Large graduate schools can receive a much higher
proportion of funds while undergraduates at the same institution may see a much smaller
percentage spent in their interest. However, the modern university system funds all elements
of the academic enterprise from a common funding pool. As a result, through the substitution
effect, well funded divisions implicitly subsize less well funded divisions by relaxing the
constraints on budgetary overhead.
In addition, inasmuch as most schools observe the 5% spending rule spending roughly 5%
of their endowment each year under various regulatory mandates state funding of public
institutions provides a form of quasi-endowment that may be measured in the billions of
dollars. For example, a state subsidy of $50 million equates to an implied endowment
equivalent of $1 billion. That is, having received $50 million from state allocations is as
useful to a university or college as having an endowment equivalent amount of $1 billion in
private endowment funds from which income may be drawn. Thus the traditional measure
ignores this disparity, which is well recognized by entities such as the Carnegie Endowment
and other entities that compute not-for-profit metrics.
Likewise, each dollar drawn into an institution via the research funding channel provides a
similar quasi-endowment equivalent. Therefore a $50 million increment in an institution's
research budget replaces the need to stockpile $1 billion in equivalent liquid instruments.
Such institutions typically place into service many millions if not hundreds of millions
of dollars worth of capital equipment each year, thus the capital stock of large research
institutions is both retired and replaced more frequently. A large research institution may turn

over its entire capital stock in the course of a decade, and the resulting churn in infrastructure
value also represents an implied endowment or quasi-endowment of many billions of dollars.
Thus true inter-institutional endowment comparisons which do not detail quasi-endowments
represented by state funding initiatives as well as external research funding grossly misstate
the comparability between institutions which may, or may not, be inherently non-comparable.
Note that references for the 2005 figures in the table below have not been provided, other
than for Bryn Athyn College; presumably the 2005 figures come from the Chronicle of
Higher Education (see next footnote), though this has not been confirmed; note also that the
2005 figures from the Chronicle are suspect (Bryn Athyn, for example, has only 150 students
according to the college's own website, not 374 as the Chronicle's ranking states).[8]
Note that there are some inconsistencies in calculating the 2006 figures in the table below;
figures for some schools (e.g., Princeton, Yale, Swarthmore, Williams, Davidson) are based
on referenced, overall endowment estimates from early 2007; figures for other schools are
based on referenced, overall endowment reports from 2006; furthermore, some figures are
calculated with enrollment numbers that include students studying off campus (e.g.,
Middlebury), while other calculations exclude off-campus students (e.g., Bowdoin); finally,
although most calculations are based on enrollments for 2006-2007, some derive from the
2005-2006 academic year (e.g., Bowdoin); eliminating these inconsistencies is difficult due
to variations in schools' reporting practices.

Institution
Princeton University
Bryn Athyn College
Yale University
Rice University
Harvard University
Franklin W. Olin College of
Engineering
Grinnell College
Stanford University
Pomona College
Swarthmore College
Massachusetts Institute of
Technology
Amherst College
Baylor College of Medicine
Williams College
California Institute of Technology
Dartmouth College
Wellesley College
Wabash College

Endowment per Student

(2005)
in USD
$ 1,679,380.
$ 803,626.[8]
$ 1,342,099.
$ 1,413,793.
$ 1,291,051.

Endowment per Student

(2006)
in USD
$ 1,900,000.[9]
$ 1,770,994.[10]
$ 1,751,927.[11][12]
$ 1,557,600.[2][13]
$ 1,456,940.[14]

$ 1,371,287

$ 1,412,147.[2]

$ 893,666.
$ 794,620.
$ 837,825.
$ 789,735.

$ 1,076,056.[15][16]
$ 946,944.[17][18]
$ 942,530.[19]
$ 841,000.[9]

$ 650,430.

$ 816,161.[20][21]

$ 700,850.
$ 426,326.
$ 666,193.
$ 653,726.
$ 475,859.
$ 557,243.
$

$ 820,846.
$ 790,002.[2][22]
$ 783,000.[9]
$ 945,140.[23][24]
$ 614,035.[25][26]
$ 603,969.[27]
$ 485,882.[28]

University of Notre Dame

Hamilton College
Norfolk State University
Northwestern University
Smith College
Bowdoin College
Haverford College
Emory University
University of Rochester
Middlebury College
Duke University
Washington University in St.
Louis
Denison University
Claremont McKenna College
Lafayette College
Bryn Mawr College
Washington and Lee University
Trinity University (Texas)
Carleton College
Virginia Military Institute
Vassar College
Davidson College
Columbia University
College of the Holy Cross

$ 440,068.
$ 361,572.

$ 360,662.

$ 481,738.[29][30]
$ 435,032.[31]
$ 421,167
$ 418,202.[32]
$ 405,737.[2][33]
$ 404,955.[34][35][36]
$ 387,785.[2][37]
$ 380,937.[38]
$ 379,774.
$ 367,830.[2][39]
$ 350,727.[2][40]
$ 346,325.[2][41]

$ 352,219.

$ 333,333.[42]
$ 327,543.[43]
$ 324,594.[44]
$ 322,261.[2][45]
$ 315,000
$ 305,120.[46]
$ 292,112.[2][47]
$ 291,001.[48]

$ 281,500. [49]
$ 212,598.

$ 250,000.[9]
$ 240,951.[50][51]
$ 221,962. [52]
$ 151,453.

University of the Ozarks

[53]

$ 144,880.
The University of Texas at Austin
[54]

Southern Methodist
$ 90,898.[55]
University(SMU)
Babson College
$ 58,560
College of William & Mary
$ 58,023.
Rochester Institute of Technology

$ 102,491.[56]
$ 66,685.[2]
$ 63,773.[2][57]
$ 41,372.[58]

[edit] Certain institutions by endowment growth

All data are from NACUBO.(Talk:List of U.S. colleges and universities by
endowment#Endowment per year): initial top 25 endowments in absolute size as of 1986.

Name

Aggregate
Arithmetic
Growth

Case Western
499%
Reserve
Cornell University 705%
Dartmouth
687%
Duke University
1,529%
Emory
646%
Harvard
908%
Johns Hopkins
470%
Massachusetts
Institute of
927%
Technology
Northwestern
817%
Princeton
716%
Rice
518%
Stanford
1,042%
Texas A&M
493%
System
University of
673%
Chicago
University of
2,719%
Michigan
University of Notre
1,437%
Dame
University of
1,129%
Pennsylvania
University of
927%
Southern California
University of
517%
Texas
University of
1,184%
Virginia
Vanderbilt
681%
Washington
481%
University
Yale
1,195%

Per Annum
Exponential
Growth

Endowment in
1986
(USD 103)

8.53%

$1,841,234

$307,250

9.93%
9.82%
13.29%
9.57%
11.00%
8.29%

$5,424,733
$3,760,234
$5,910,280
$5,561,743
$34,634,906
$2,800,377

$673,848
$477,774
$362,706
$745,188
$3,435,013
$491,543

11.09%

$9,980,410

$971,346

10.55%
10.00%
8.67%
11.60%

$6,503,292
$15,787,200
$4,669,544
$17,164,836

$709,236
$1,934,010
$755,782
$1,502,583

8.48%

$6,590,300

$1,110,440

9.74%

$6,204,189

$802,500

15.90%

$7,089,830

$251,517

13.01%

$5,976,973

$388,965

11.94%

$6,635,187

$540,084

11.09%

$3,715,272

$361,784

8.66%

$15,613,672

$2,530,730

12.15%

$4,370,209

$340,387

9.79%

$3,487,500

$446,458

8.38%

$5,567,843

$958,461

12.20%

$22,530,200

$1,739,460

[edit] References and footnotes

General references:

Endowment in
2007
(USD 103)

2009 National Association of College and University Business Officers Endowment

Study (PDF)
2008 National Association of College and University Business Officers Endowment
Study (PDF)
2007 National Association of College and University Business Officers Endowment
Study (PDF)
2006 National Association of College and University Business Officers Endowment
Study (PDF)
2005 National Association of College and University Business Officers Endowment
Study (PDF)
Colleges/Universities: Endowment per Student for 2004 from questbridge.org
Dada, Kamil (February 1, 2008). "Congress investigates endowment". Stanford Daily.
http://daily.stanford.edu/article/2008/2/1/congressInvestigatesEndowment.