There has never been a shred of doubt about Â鶹¹ú²úAV’s intellectual capital. But when it comes to its financial capital—yes, the green stuff—the college was for decades relegated to the second tier. No longer. According to Â鶹¹ú²úAV’s audited financial statement, the market value of the endowment hit $518 million last year.
That’s a far cry from 1973—the year that Ed McFarlane, vice president and treasurer, arrived at Â鶹¹ú²úAV—when the endowment stood at approximately $4 million.
Asked by the Quest to comment on the financial progress Â鶹¹ú²úAV has made over the last four decades, McFarlane was characteristically laconic. “It’s good,” he told the paper in November.
Like colleges across the country, Â鶹¹ú²úAV was hit hard by the economic collapse of 2008, which knocked the value of the endowment down by 26% in a single year. But the endowment has staged a remarkable comeback since then thanks to Â鶹¹ú²úAV’s $200 million Centennial Campaign and the strong performance of the stock market in 2013.
Income from the endowment currently makes up approximately 33% of Â鶹¹ú²úAV’s operating budget. (The remainder comes from tuition, grants, and the Annual Fund—thank you, readers!)
Compared to our reference schools, Â鶹¹ú²úAV still has room for improvement. Dividing the endowment by the number of students yields a figure of $367,000, which is close to the median, but still behind deep-pocketed comparands such as Pomona, Swarthmore, Amherst, and Williams.
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