Stanford U.’s Endowment Grows to $14-Billion

Stanford University’s endowment totaled $14-billion in 2006, up 13 percent from 2005, making it the third-richest university in the United States (behind Harvard and Yale), reports the San Francisco Chronicle.

Stanford and other colleges and universities say large endowments allow them to offer tuition support to low-income students. Some higher-education experts, however, raise concerns about how much aid poor students are getting as the nation’s most elite universities get richer.

Prestige plays a factor in the race to grow endowments, say some observers.

“The status of universities is substantially a function of their financial resources,” said Kevin Carey, research and policy manager for Education Sector, a nonprofit education-research institute. “The more money you have in the endowment, the higher it will grow, the more money you can spend, the higher your rankings will be, and the easier it is to raise more money. Money and status are very interrelated in higher education.”