By David G. Barry
Only one Ivy League school reported a gain for the fiscal year
ended June 30: Yale University.
Princeton University, the last of the Ivies to report its figures, said
its $38.5 endowment lost 1.5%.
In a statement, Jim Matteo, Princeton’s vice president for finance and
treasurer, said the “challenging market environment in the past year reinforces
the university’s long-term investment strategy: long-term investments that lead
to long-term results that support long-term goals.”
Princeton said the endowment’s average annual return over the past 10 years is
12.2 and 11% for the past 20 years. For the 2020-21 fiscal year, Princeton
produced a 46.9% return.
Yale earlier this month announced that it had a gain of 0.8% but that the value
of its endowment declined from $42.3 billion on June 30, 2021, to $41.4 billion
on June 30, 2022. The University of Pennsylvania’s $20.7 billion
endowment posted a 0.0% return while Cornell University’s $9.8 billion
fund reported a negative 1.3% return, Harvard University’s $50.9 billion
endowment a negative 1.8%, Dartmouth College’s $8.1 billion endowment a
negative 3.1%, the $6.5 billion Brown University endowment a negative
4.6% and Columbia University’s $13.3 billon had a negative 7.6% return.
Yale and Penn are more the exception than the rule.
According to Cambridge Associates, the preliminary mean and median for colleges
and universities are both negative 6%.