Educational Endowments Swing Back To The Black In 2013

The 2013 NACUBO-Commonfund Study of Endowments (NCSE) surveyed 835 US colleges and universities for data on their endowments covering asset allocations, returns, spending patterns, management and staffing and risk management.

In the aggregate, these endowments had assets worth over $448B. Of this, almost $321B was accounted for by just 82 endowments, or less than 10% of the total number of survey participants.

2013 a sea-change over 2012

A gratifying finding from the survey is that endowments were able to swing from a negative return in 2012 to a solid 11.7% gain in 2013.

Domestic equities were the asset class primarily responsible for this turnaround, generating positive returns of 20.6%. International...