Oil prices are on a major upswing and paying off for some endowments, even as colleges face pressure to divest from fossil fuels over climate change concerns.
Endowments
Endowments
Aug 31, 2022
Oil prices are on a major upswing and paying off for some endowments, even as colleges face pressure to divest from fossil fuels over climate change concerns.
Recent Articles
Recent Opinions
Views • October 27, 2021
Harvard must go beyond divestment to model climate leadership (opinion)
Views • October 26, 2020
How colleges should consider asset allocation, endowment spending and development in light of COVID and other crises (opinion)
Views • August 18, 2020
Colleges should invest endowment funds with more firms owned by women and people of color (opinion)
Views • May 27, 2020
Should universities tap endowments in response to the budget crises brought on by the pandemic? (opinion)
Views • April 27, 2020
Wealthy colleges should spend from their endowments to help their communities (opinion)
Archive
August 10, 2022
New data shows college endowment returns are down after a banner year in 2021. Experts say the returns says more about a difficult year for the market than investment strategies.
July 1, 2022
Colleges have increasingly emphasized the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion in recent years—but not necessarily in the firms managing their assets, a new study finds.
March 9, 2022
Few institutions are heavily invested in Russian assets, but college officials say divestment is one symbolic step that institutions can take to protest Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
February 22, 2022
Students have long called on colleges to divest their endowments from fossil fuels. Now organizers at MIT, Princeton, Stanford, Vanderbilt and Yale are deploying the law to end such investments.
February 18, 2022
The average endowment’s size increased by 35 percent, leaving 19 percent of institutions with endowments worth more than $1 billion. But experts say few students benefited from that growth.
October 27, 2021
The university’s divestment is powerful, but it must do more to model climate leadership, write Ilana Cohen and Tim Wirth.
October 25, 2021
Experts say crediting students for their climate advocacy is wise. But institutions tend to minimize the role campus activists may have played in helping them decide to divest from fossil fuels.
October 1, 2021
Private equity and venture capital performed especially well in fiscal year 2021, causing the largest university endowments to swell.
September 23, 2021
The university’s commitment to end indirect legacy investments in fossil fuels captured attention all over the world. Now higher education officials and climate activists are contemplating what the decision might mean for them.