Cambridge university endowment estimate

OP

Which wiki did you update?

It would be excellent if you also updated the "proper" wikipedia college table as it uses Fixed Assets (and old data) whereas their equivalent table for Oxford does have Endowments:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colleges_of_the_University_of_Cambridge#Colleges

I've updated the Cambridge university wiki page but not the Cambridge colleges endowment table. I also edit the Uk universities wiki page that contains the endowment of all uk unis. Here's a link to the page:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_UK_universities_by_endowment

Reply 21

Doones

21

Original post by Ali1302

I've updated the Cambridge university wiki page but not the Cambridge colleges endowment table. I also edit the Uk universities wiki page that contains the endowment of all uk unis. Here's a link to the page:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_UK_universities_by_endowment

Good stuff. I *might* do the colleges table....

Edit to add: ...hold on. Editing wikipedia tables is a complete pain. Grrr...

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 22

Ali1302

OP

10

Original post by jneill

Good stuff. I *might* do the colleges table....

Edit to add: ...hold on. Editing wikipedia tables is a complete pain. Grrr...

I'd like to add an endowment per student list for the Cambridge colleges as this could be a more accurate measure of wealth. This is because colleges vary in size so endowment per student takes this into account.

Reply 23

Doones

21

Original post by Ali1302

I'd like to add an endowment per student list for the Cambridge colleges as this could be a more accurate measure of wealth. This is because colleges vary in size so endowment per student takes this into account.

I've done that. It doesn't change the ranking very much. I'll upload the table later.

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 24

Student403

19

Original post by hihihihihi

Damn son. Though Harvard has $32 billion endowment.

Yup on average American universities have much higher endowments.

Reply 25

Doones

21

Original post by Ali1302

I'd like to add an endowment per student list for the Cambridge colleges as this could be a more accurate measure of wealth. This is because colleges vary in size so endowment per student takes this into account.

Here you go
Rank : College : Endowment per Student
1 : Trinity : £978,656 per student
2 : St John’s : £832,130
3 : Peterhouse : £757,229
4 : Christ’s : £262,804
5 : Jesus : £228,834
6 : Emmanuel : £208,232
7 : King’s : £188,874
8 : Corpus Christi : £173,344
9 : Robinson : £156,651
10 : Selwyn : £146,636
11 : Homerton : £123,609
12 : Pembroke : £116,593
13 : Magdalene : £94,896
14 : Newnham : £94,548
15 : Clare Hall : £91,738
16 : Queens’ : £82,933
17 : Trinity Hall : £82,579
18 : Clare : £79,275
19 : St Catharine’s : £77,778
20 : Murray Edwards : £73,615
21 : Fitzwilliam : £72,022
22 : Sidney Sussex : £71,567
23 : Gonville & Cauis : £65,059
24 : Wolfson : £62,565
25 : Lucy Cavendish : £60,241
26 : Churchill : £49,361
27 : Girton : £45,907
28 : St Edmunds : £45,034
29 : Downing : £39,567
30 : Darwin : £31,504
31 : Hughes Hall : £7,697

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 26

Ali1302

OP

10

Original post by Student403

Yup on average American universities have much higher endowments.

That is true due to the philanthropic nature of American students and alumni a lot of them would donate what they can to their alma mater. At Harvard $1 billion could come annually from donations alone, in comparison to only around £200 million($310 million) is donated to Oxford annually. The issue is only 10% of Oxford alumni and students donate in comparison to 50% of Harvard alumni donating. A recent major donation to Oxford comes from Sir Michael moritz of £75 million and Hong Kong billionaire Li ka shing of £20 million. In comparison Harvard receives a record donation of $400 million from John A. Paulson and the family of Gerald chan donating $350 million. You can see from these examples Harvard gets more $$$$$.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 27

Student403

19

Original post by Ali1302

That is true due to the philanthropic nature of American students and alumni a lot of them would donate what they can to their alma mater. At Harvard $1 billion could come annually from donations alone, in comparison to only around £200 million($310 million) is donated to Oxford. The issue is only 10% of Oxford alumni donate in comparison to 50% of Harvard alumni donating. A recent major donation to Oxford comes from Sir Michael moritz of £75 million and Hong Kong billionaire Li ka shing of £20 million. In comparison Harvard receives a record donation of $400 million from John A. Paulson and the family of Gerald chan donating $350 million.

Sums it up pretty nicely :biggrin:

Reply 28

Doones

21

Original post by Ali1302

That is true due to the philanthropic nature of American students and alumni a lot of them would donate what they can to their alma mater. At Harvard $1 billion could come annually from donations alone, in comparison to only around £200 million($310 million) is donated to Oxford annually. The issue is only 10% of Oxford alumni donate in comparison to 50% of Harvard alumni donating. A recent major donation to Oxford comes from Sir Michael moritz of £75 million and Hong Kong billionaire Li ka shing of £20 million. In comparison Harvard receives a record donation of $400 million from John A. Paulson and the family of Gerald chan donating $350 million.

Cambridge has recently launched a major fundraising campaign to raise £2 billion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1D6x4rkxyE

https://www.philanthropy.cam.ac.uk

Reply 29

Ali1302

OP

10

Original post by jneill

Cambridge has recently launched a major fundraising campaign to raise £2 billion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1D6x4rkxyE

https://www.philanthropy.cam.ac.uk

Cambridge would have no issues raising that amount of money in let's say 3-4 years. they've hired talented staff from the United states such as Alison traub who successfully lead the University of Virginia's $2 billion fundraising campaign and Nick Cavalla who's taking advice from David Swenson the head of Yale university's endowment. Cambridge has adopted a U.S. style fundraiser and are going to reach out to a lot of alumni and students and try to push for every penny they could raise. They also wish to raise large amounts from overseas since the global brand name of the university is considered very valuable. I like the video and think it's just the type of video that Cambridge needs in order to raise serious money to rank amongst the richest global unis, the university does aspire to be as rich as Harvard, Princeton and Yale. With enough effort, I believe Cambridge might be able to pull it off. We'll wait and see.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 30

Rhetorical Hips

14

Original post by jneill

Here you go
Rank : College : Endowment per Student
1 : Trinity : £978,656 per student
2 : St John’s : £832,130
3 : Peterhouse : £757,229
4 : Christ’s : £262,804
5 : Jesus : £228,834
6 : Emmanuel : £208,232
7 : King’s : £188,874
8 : Corpus Christi : £173,344
9 : Robinson : £156,651
10 : Selwyn : £146,636
11 : Homerton : £123,609
12 : Pembroke : £116,593
13 : Magdalene : £94,896
14 : Newnham : £94,548
15 : Clare Hall : £91,738
16 : Queens’ : £82,933
17 : Trinity Hall : £82,579
18 : Clare : £79,275
19 : St Catharine’s : £77,778
20 : Murray Edwards : £73,615
21 : Fitzwilliam : £72,022
22 : Sidney Sussex : £71,567
23 : Gonville & Cauis : £65,059
24 : Wolfson : £62,565
25 : Lucy Cavendish : £60,241
26 : Churchill : £49,361
27 : Girton : £45,907
28 : St Edmunds : £45,034
29 : Downing : £39,567
30 : Darwin : £31,504
31 : Hughes Hall : £7,697

Oh ffs Trinity...no wonder they pay for their textbooks

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 31

Doones

21

Original post by Rhetorical Hips

Oh ffs Trinity...no wonder they pay for their textbooks

Actually I'm surprised how close Johns is. And Peterhouse not that far behind...

Reply 32

Abstract_Prism

20

How comes Peterhouse is so rich? And what do they actually use the money for? Does a college's wealth benefit the students in any way?

Reply 33

Doones

21

Original post by Abstract_Prism

How comes Peterhouse is so rich? And what do they actually use the money for? Does a college's wealth benefit the students in any way?

Because it's been accumumulated over literally 100's of years. And also the college is small so the endowment/student is relatively large.

Information about why it's important for Peterhouse: https://www.pet.cam.ac.uk/why-does-peterhouse-need-your-support

Original post by Abstract_Prism

How comes Peterhouse is so rich? And what do they actually use the money for? Does a college's wealth benefit the students in any way?

It's an endowment - that's effectively a savings fund where you can't spend the core amount, you can only spend the annual interest. So they income the endowment generates for the College is entirely different to the value of the endowment.

First of all, mainly depending on their history/age, Colleges have their endowments in different formats. Most have large proportions of 'stocks and shares' or income generating funds they can manage and take greater to lesser risks to generate income.

Some have quite large property holdings, either real estate or land, and these behave in different ways, being much slower to change income levels, but sometimes increasing in value rapidly, and rarely decreasing. The value of the property may change, but the income it generates through rents will change much more slowly. However, if say, a College gets planning permission for a piece f land they own in Cambridge, and can build a shopping centre on it, not only does the value of the land jump up, but so do rents on the shops, so you would see a large increase in the endowment.

They tend nowadays, to manage all monetary endowments through a 'smoothed income' so, if they make 6% per annum on all investments, they leave a certain % in the funds to allow for inflation (£50m now isn't going to have the same buying power in 50 year's time, you have to add to it to allow for inflation) and they take off the rest to fund College activities - it's currently about 3.5% per year for most Colleges.

You can read each College's annual report at it will tell you all the details of how its endowment is structured, who manages it, how it is managed and how much income they take from the endowment interest each year to 'spend'. The key thing to remember is that each College is a charity, and as such, and through the rules of endowments, is legally obliged to manage its finances on the basis of 'in perpetuity' ie they have to work on the basis of securing their permanent existence. They cannot spend the core endowment money.

Reply 35

nulli tertius

21

Original post by threeportdrift

You can read each College's annual report at it will tell you all the details of how its endowment is structured, who manages it, how it is managed and how much income they take from the endowment interest each year to 'spend'. The key thing to remember is that each College is a charity, and as such, and through the rules of endowments, is legally obliged to manage its finances on the basis of 'in perpetuity' ie they have to work on the basis of securing their permanent existence. They cannot spend the core endowment money.

Just to mention a couple of things.

The first is that the endowment for accounting purposes is much smaller (£16m in the case of Peterhouse) than that usually quoted. The reason is that college accounts distinguish between "investments" and "endowment". That concerns the legal measure of control on what a college can do with the asset.

The second is that colleges generally have secret reserves in the form of unvalued or undervalued assets. Peterhouse doesn't value its rare books, silver and works of art because it considers them inalienable but there is no doubt that if push came to shove and it was in a financial crisis, it would gain Charity Commission permission to sell valuable chattels rather than income producing investments/property

Reply 36

Cadmus

3

Apparently, as of 2015 Cambridge central endowment stands at

3 billion 561 million pounds

https://www.cam.ac.uk/system/files/annual_report_2015_1.pdf (p31)

Judging by your estimation from the colleges, that puts it at about 7 Billion 161 Million pounds, assuming my pi$$ poor maths skills worked that out right.

As you said, by far the richest in Europe.

Reply 37

Doones

21

Original post by Cadmus

Apparently, as of 2015 Cambridge central endowment stands at

3 billion 561 million pounds

https://www.cam.ac.uk/system/files/annual_report_2015_1.pdf (p31)

Judging by your estimation from the colleges, that puts it at about 7 Billion 161 Million pounds, assuming my pi$$ poor maths skills worked that out right.

As you said, by far the richest in Europe.

Page 31 is Net Assets, that's quite different to the Endowment.

According to page 36 the CUEF (Cambridge University Endowment Fund) was £2,533m (2014: £2,291m)

Reply 38

Cadmus

3

Original post by jneill

Page 31 is Net Assets, that's quite different to the Endowment.

According to page 36 the CUEF (Cambridge University Endowment Fund) was £2,533m (2014: £2,291m)