College Endowments Are Thriving
August 14, 2006 | Read Time: 1 minute
Once a backwater of the investment world, U.S. colleges and universities are now among the world’s most admired investors, worth about $300-billion, reports Newsweek.
But as universities continue to build big endowments, some alumni are beginning to wonder why tuition fees are also increasing.
A few colleges, like Berea College in Kentucky and Massachusetts’ Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering, are using money from donors to reduce tuition. But other universities and some experts warn that a stock-market dive could put colleges that are using endowment returns to underwrite tuition or finance educational programs in a sticky position.
Read The Chronicle of Philanthropy’s special report on endowents of universities and other nonprofit institutions.
