College Endowments Saw Stellar Returns as the Market Soared

During a fiscal year when stocks soared, college endowments posted annual returns that were up sharply from the year before, when the markets hit a volatile stretch early in the pandemic.

According to the annual Nacubo-TIAA Study of Endowments, scheduled for release on Friday, college endowments had an average one-year return of 30.6 percent, net of fees, in the 2021 fiscal year. The year before, the endowments’ overall average return was 1.8 percent.

The positive results extended across endowments both large and small. Even the lowest rates of return were still more than 20 percent, the study found.

The study’s findings are “quite a different one-year snapshot” from the 2020 fiscal year, said Susan Whealler Johnston, president and chief executive officer of the National Association of College and University Business Officers, in a conference call for reporters.

The average size of endowments in the survey was $1.1 billion. However, the median endowment size was about $200 million; more than half of the endowments in the study were less than $250 million.

Endowments also benefited from new gifts, which rose 15 percent from a year earlier — part of a 2020-21 boom in philanthropy described earlier this week in a survey by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.

The Nacubo-TIAA study reflects responses from 720 institutions with total endowment assets of $821 billion in the 2021 fiscal year, which ended on June 30, 2021, for most institutions.

Endowments reported an annual average spending rate that was the same as the prior fiscal year: 4.5 percent. Although endowments had blockbuster returns in the 2021 fiscal year, Johnston said, that doesn’t mean spending rates should have increased.

“The spending rate didn’t drop last year in the face of low returns, and it hasn’t risen in the face of high returns,” said Johnston, who noted that endowments are built to support institutions over the long term. “The pandemic suggests that endowments will continue to take a conservative approach to managing their spending.”

Almost 60 percent of endowments increased their support for their institution’s operating budget in the 2021 fiscal year. The likely impetus for that decision, according to the study, is that the pandemic cut into tuition and auxiliary revenue at many colleges.

Here are more highlights from the survey:

of institutions reported receiving gifts for diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.