What does a universities endowment say about the school? Forum

[mattviphky]

I was pretty surprised to see that SLU's endowment was 800 million, on par with Tulane. But Loyola-Chicago and Depaul both have endowments of around 300 million. Just something I noticed. But i was curious if this means anything?

[D'Angelo]

no

[NZA]

[penis joke]

[mattviphky]

no

Yeah, i didn't know if more money meant anything, but I really have no idea how the whole endowment thing works. Just curious.

[penis joke]

[rinkrat19]

It doesn't really mean anything. And even if it did, those are peanuts. T14 schools have endowments in the billions.

[MrPapagiorgio]

[penis joke]

Let's face it. Size matters.

[lawyerwannabe]

T14 endowments (in order) as of 2010:

Harvard 27.6B
Yale 16.7B
Stanford 13.9B
Michigan 6.6B
Columbia 6.5B
Northwestern 5.9B
UPenn 5.7B
Chicago 5.6B
Berkeley 5.4B (state-wide; couldn't find it for specific school)
Duke 4.8B
UVA 4.5B
Cornell 4.3B
NYU 2.4B
Georgetown 1B

[iamrobk]

T14 endowments (in order) as of 2010:

Harvard 27.6B
Yale 16.7B
Stanford 13.9B
Michigan 6.6B
Columbia 6.5B
Northwestern 5.9B
UPenn 5.7B
Chicago 5.6B
Berkeley 5.4B (state-wide; couldn't find it for specific school)
Duke 4.8B
UVA 4.5B
Cornell 4.3B
NYU 2.4B
Georgetown 1B

GeorgeTTTown in last, of course.

[Mal Reynolds]

University's*

[kalvano]

University's*

Thank you. I've been repressing the urge.

[tyro]

What does a university's endowment say about the school?

It's a record of how successful the school's graduates were in the past and how smart the people managing the endowment's growth are.

[flcath]

no

(GULC student)

[mattviphky]

I really didn't mean to start this whole "who has the biggest endowment" conversation. I guess I was wondering if it means anything for law students in particular. But that question has been answered, so thank you. Btw, WUSTL's endowment is nearly as big as Chicago's...that was surprising.

[Aberzombie1892]

In theory, the higher the endowment, the more successful alumni are from the school. In reality, there are a lot of factors that influence how large the endowment is.

Such as:
1. How old the institution is, how much starting capital the institution had when it began, and what was the institution founded to do and how long did it take to transform from that into a university
2. What professional programs are offered by the institution, and how large are those programs (JD/MD).
3. What graduate programs are offered by the institution, and how large are those programs (PhDs/Masters/MBAs)
4. How strong is the alumni network in terms of helping graduates find jobs (this is where a lot of semi-strong schools fail to be strong schools - they do not develop alumni relationships that well)
5. Location of the institution, proximity to peers, and strength of the athletic teams (a lot of companies donate money to the endowment of institutions, and these three factors influence who they donate money to - assuming they are not predisposed to one institution over another)

[bmore]

University's*

Just read the other thread with about the app typos.

[ahduth]

In theory, the higher the endowment, the more successful alumni are from the school. In reality, there are a lot of factors that influence how large the endowment is.

Such as:
1. How old the institution is, how much starting capital the institution had when it began, and what was the institution founded to do and how long did it take to transform from that into a university
2. What professional programs are offered by the institution, and how large are those programs (JD/MD).
3. What graduate programs are offered by the institution, and how large are those programs (PhDs/Masters/MBAs)
4. How strong is the alumni network in terms of helping graduates find jobs (this is where a lot of semi-strong schools fail to be strong schools - they do not develop alumni relationships that well)
5. Location of the institution, proximity to peers, and strength of the athletic teams (a lot of companies donate money to the endowment of institutions, and these three factors influence who they donate money to - assuming they are not predisposed to one institution over another)

And how much of the endowment is being spent rather than invested (that other factor equaling in importance the amount of money coming in). >.>