Dartmouth's endowment return topped the national average for higher education endowments by more than five percent for the 2005 fiscal year according to an annual survey released this week by the National Association of College and University Business Officers.
The College generated returns to their investments of 14.4 percent compared with the national average endowment earnings of 9.3 percent.
Yale had the strongest return of any school, generating a 22.3 percent return on investments.
Despite strong returns on its investments, Dartmouth's total endowment -- just over $2.7 billion at the end of the 2005 fiscal year -- was seventh in the Ivy League and 22nd overall, according to NACUBO's 746-college survey. Brown, the last-ranked Ivy, came in at 26th overall with a $1.8 billion endowment.
With an endowment of slightly under $3.8 billion, Cornell stood directly ahead of Dartmouth in the Ivy rankings, but gained five places on the College at number 17 overall.
Harvard University remains by far the wealthiest school in the country, with an endowment of over $25.4 billion. Its nearest competitors, Yale and Stanford, lag more than $10 billion behind with $15.2 and $12.2 billion, respectively. Harvard's endowment currently exceeds the CIA's estimated gross domestic product for Zimbabwe, Bolivia, Panama and Afghanistan.
Hedge Fund Research, Inc. cited the College as one of many entities investing its endowment in hedge funds, according to a Jan. 17 Bloomberg report.
"It's not conservative," Vice President for Fiscal Affairs Julie Dolan said of the College's overall investment strategy. "We do invest for the long term."
"There are certainly more risks than with tiny little endowments, but we're not frivolous. We don't take unnecessary risks," she added.
Dolan went on to speculate about the source of Harvard University's success in comparison with Dartmouth.
"We don't do huge arbitrage plays," she said. "Some people suspect that's what Harvard does. Harvard has an endowment staff of well over 100 people, whereas we have an investment office of five professionals. We rely on fund managers to do a lot of our investments."
