Wesleyan’s Recent Endowment History
The University’s endowment recently experienced an upswing, increasing from a low of $488 million in Jan. of 2009 to $531 million in Sept. The turn-around in the financial markets, coupled with budget cuts for the 2009-2010 academic year, contributed to the endowment’s growth. Despite these gains, the endowment remains significantly below its peak in Fiscal Year 2007, when it grew by 15 percent to $711 million. Consequently, the administration is considering further budget cuts for the next academic year.
That’s about a 9% increase.
S&P 500 is up slightly over 17% in the same period of time.
Not stellar.
Now this comparison does not take into account endowment additions through gift or withdrawals through spending during the nine months, so the actual investment performance may be a little better than 9%.
But still not stellar.
Another way to look at this is that the endowment is down 25% since 2007 and must increase in value by 33% from today’s level to get back to even.