Despite an impressive 15.7 percent rate of return last year, the College's endowment dropped to 21st in a ranking of the country's largest university endowments, according to a survey by the National Association of College and University Business Officers.
Dartmouth's return on its endowment ranked second to Harvard's in the Ivy League this year. In terms of total value, however, the College's endowment of 2.45 billion dollars exceeded only Brown's.
"We had a great year last year. We certainly beat the market," said Julie Dolan, the College's vice president of finance.
While investment success is unpredictable, Dolan said she hoped this year's success signaled a return to continued growth.
Dartmouth's endowment held steady at the 20th position in the last several years. But the University of Virginia leapfrogged Dartmouth in the rankings this year after the UVA endowment soared an astounding 55 percent higher, bumping the College from the top 20.
The expansion of Dartmouth's endowment has stagnated in recent years. The bursting of the technology bubble in 2001 hit the endowment particularly hard.
"The last few years were tough on everyone ... a lot of places lost a lot more than we did," Dolan said.
Dartmouth's was the only Ivy League endowment to fall in market value over the course of fiscal years 2002 and 2003. The endowment dropped 5.7 percent in 2002 and grew only 2 percent in 2003, failing to keep pace with inflation.
Despite recent difficulties, College financial officials expressed satisfaction with the state of the endowment.
"Dartmouth is certainly financially sound," Dolan said.
Dolan did note that the financial aid endowment, while healthy, could be better funded and is marked as a priority in the ongoing capital campaign.
While other schools may have larger endowments than Dartmouth's, the College's relatively small student body, coupled with the small number of graduate students, leaves Dartmouth in a financially desirable position.
"Dartmouth is certainly a wealthy institution in terms of endowment per student," Dolan said.
While the endowment has pulled itself out of its years-long stagnation, other institutions have taken up where Dartmouth left off. The market value of Columbia University's endowment grew 3.5 percent in the last year, a yield well below the national average and by far the lowest in the Ancient Eight. Duke's growth of 9.8 percent also landed noticeably below the norm.
In addition to achieving the second-highest increase in market value in the Ivy League, Dartmouth's endowment growth exceeded that of Stanford University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Emory University.
