At $38 Billion, Harvard’s Endowment Tops All Universities

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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At $38 Billion, Harvard’s Endowment Tops All Universities

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A new study of the endowments of the top colleges and universities in America puts Harvard’s endowment at $38.3 billion. The figure is well ahead of any other educational institution.

The 2018 figures are from the National Association of College and University Business Officers, which has a membership of over 1,900 colleges and universities.

Harvard’s endowment size is followed by the University of Texas System at $30.9 billion. It is actually eight universities, each founded in a different year and located in a different city. The endowment number is the largest for any public university system in the United States.

Yale, one of the universities that make up the Ivy League, along with Harvard, ranks third in endowment size. Its endowment is $29.4 billion. Fifth on the list of endowment size, Princeton’s is $25.9 billion. The University of Pennsylvania, also an Ivy League school, has an endowment of $13.8 billion, which puts it in seventh place.
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In fourth place, California’s Stanford has an endowment of $26.4 billion. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, located just miles from Harvard, has an endowment of $16.5 billion, which is sixth on the list. The Texas A&M System is in eighth place with an endowment of $13.5 billion. The University of Michigan is in ninth place with an endowment of $11.9 billion. And in tenth place, Northwestern has an endowment of $11.1 billion.

Two other universities have endowments over $10 billion. Columbia, another Ivy League school, has an endowment of $10.9 billion. The University of Notre Dame has an endowment of $10.7 billion.

One thing the universities on the list have in common is very low acceptance rates. Among those with endowments over $10 billion, the figure averages well under 10%. Stanford’s is 6.4%, the lowest. Harvard’s is 7.2%.

The graduation rate is another number the schools on the list have in common. None has a rate of less than 94%.
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 Institution 2018 Endowment Graduation Rate Acceptance Rate
Harvard $38,303,383 96% 5.20%
Univ. of Texas $30,886,018
Yale $29,351,100 97% 6.90%
Stanford $26,464,912 94% 4.70%
Princeton $25,917,199 97% 6.40%
MIT $16,529,432 94% 7.20%
Univ. of Pennsylvania $13,777,441 96% 9.30%
Texas A&M $13,524,947
Univ. of Michigan $11,901,760
Northwestern $11,087,659 94% 9.20%
Univ. of California $11,008,035
Columbia $10,869,245 95% 6.60%
Notre Dame $10,727,653 95% 18.90%

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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