Light & Verity

Growth spurt

Yale and its peers see remarkable endowment returns.

Chart: Jeanine Dunn.

Chart: Jeanine Dunn.

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2020–21 is a year many of us might just as soon forget, but for Yale’s endowment it was a year to remember. The university’s portfolio earned a 40.2 percent return during the 12 months that ended last June 30, and the value of the endowment grew from $31.2 billion to $42.3 billion. Yale was no outlier—the S&P 500 gained 38.4 percent over the same period, and Yale’s peers reported comparably stratospheric gains. Here’s how the other Ivy League schools, plus MIT and Stanford, did during the same period.

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