Money

Ranked: The Largest American University Endowments

Published

1 month ago

May 14, 2025

Dorothy Neufeld

Graphics/Design:

Christina Kostandi

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Ranked: The Largest American University Endowments

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Key Takeaways

At $52 billion, Harvard University has the largest endowment nationally, with Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Ken Griffin among its megadonors.
In second is the University of Texas System, worth $47.5 billion as of fiscal year 2024.
Yale follows next, at $41.4 billion, seeing among the strongest investment returns over the last decade.

University endowments held more than $870 billion in assets last year, largely dominated by America’s elite institutions.

While Harvard, Yale, and Stanford have amassed tens of billions in assets, the median endowment stands at $243 million across 658 institutions. Overall, endowment assets increased by 4% in 2024 driven by donations and investment returns.

This graphic shows the largest university endowments in America, based on data from the NACUBO via College Transitions.

Harvard Leads Nationally

As the largest university endowment worldwide, Harvard boasts a number of wealthy donors including Michael Bloomberg and hedge fund billionaire John Paulson.

After the Trump administration froze billions in grants and funding, it raised $1.1 million across more than 4,000 online donations in the first two days after stating it would push back against their demands. Overall, the fund holds $52 billion in assets, as shown in the table below:

Ranking	School	School Type	Value (B)
1	Harvard University	Private	$52
2	University of Texas System	Public	$48
3	Yale University	Private	$41
4	Stanford University	Private	$38
5	The Trustees of Princeton University	Private	$34
6	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Private	$25
7	Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania	Private	$22
8	The Texas A&M University System & Related Foundations	Public	$20
9	University of Michigan	Public	$19
10	Regents of the University of California	Public	$19
11	University of Notre Dame	Private	$18
12	Trustees of Columbia University	Private	$15
13	Northwestern University	Private	$14
14	Johns Hopkins University	Private	$13
15	Washington University	Private	$12
16	Duke University	Private	$12
17	Emory University	Private	$11
18	Cornell University	Private	$11
19	Vanderbilt University	Private	$10
20	University of Virginia	Public	$10
21	The University of Chicago	Private	$10
22	Dartmouth College	Private	$8
23	University of Southern California	Private	$8
24	Rice University	Private	$8
25	The Ohio State University	Public	$8

As we can see, the University of Texas System is the only public university endowment ranking in the top five.

In fact, UT Austin is among the few universities that has invested in Bitcoin, along with Stanford and Brown. While endowments typically avoid riskier investments, they are increasingly allocating funds into cryptocurrency thanks to regulatory factors.

Overall, a number of elite institutions have the largest endowments nationally, including Stanford (#4) and Princeton (#5).

How Do University Endowments Spend Their Assets?

While university’s hold significant endowment funds, much of the assets are designated for a specific purpose, such as scholarships.

At the same time, these assets are often invested in illiquid assets such as real estate and hedge funds. As a result, it can be damaging to sell these at a loss if universities face a funding shortfall.

Below, we show how $30 billion in endowment funds were spent during fiscal year 2024:

Category	Average Share of Endowment Spending
Student financial aid	48%
Academic programs and research	18%
Endowed faculty positions	11%
Facilities operation and management	7%
All other purposes	17%

Overall, nearly half of spending went toward student financial aid, with some of the largest endowments such as Stanford and Harvard covering 100% of students financial aid requests.

Academic research was the second-highest category, at 18%, followed by endowed faculty positions, at 11%. Specifically, these positions are funded by endowment donations over a number of years. Finally, facilities operation and management accounted for the smallest share, at 7% overall, covering renovations and building repairs.