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Oct 2005 to Feb 2012 To be archived

The University of Chicago, with $10.3 billion as of a recent date, is missing from the list. Please add it after checking the exact amount. 2603:300A:1400:D200:A552:12A4:6F59:F2EC ( talk) 08:58, 28 October 2023 (UTC)Larry Siegel, University of Chicago reply

An IP editor continues to change the figure for Stanford from the NACUBO-sourced one to one that includes non-endowment funds such as expendable funds and capital reserves per their reference here. The IP editor has been asked to discuss the edit but has not yet done so. Here is another opportunity on this talk page for them to discuss why they think their edit is more appropriate in this article. 72Dino ( talk) 20:05, 31 August 2012 (UTC) reply

Should be on the list as per the wikipedia page on Syracuse University lists its endowment at $1.01 billion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.24.6.168 ( talk) 22:03, 12 December 2012 (UTC) reply

With the new NACUBO rankings, there are now 70 universities with $1 billion or more in endowment. This criteria ($1 billion minimum endowment) that is currently used for listing a university is untenable to maintain as the number of schools qualifying will continue to grow. Therefore, I think we need to rethink the criteria for inclusion. How about the "Top 50 largest endowments". That way, the criteria is scalable no matter how large endowment values grow with time. CrazyPaco ( talk) 02:08, 2 February 2013 (UTC) reply

Limiting the list to universities with endowments over $1bn makes this extremely selective, and ignores the vast majority of institutions. I would much rather see a list of the top 200 or 300. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wrcheatham ( talk • contribs) 17:17, 26 June 2016 (UTC) reply

Also, when it comes to the "Endowment per Student" section, I would like to see a much more complete list. It's not really helpful to see just 50 schools. I would think the relevant list should be the top 300+ schools sorted automatically by endowment per student. That's what the "Endowment by Student" section is supposed to be about. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wrcheatham ( talk • contribs) 17:20, 26 June 2016 (UTC) reply

Why is the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO), which has a membership of 2,500 colleges and universities, the only source for endowment market value calculations used in the table?....for several reasons. Primarily, for matters of consistency and thus comparability from one institution to another, including comparisons over time.

The NACUBO-Commonfund Study of Endowments is the only third party WP:SOURCE available for the consistent calculation, and thus comparison, of the market value of most higher education endowments. It is the most thorough endowment report, represents the industry standard for such comparison, and is an organization whose credibility is beyond reproach. The consistency of this annual reporting, not only between institutions but also from year-to-year, allows for the best possible, although sometimes inherently imperfect, comparisons of endowments between different institutions. On the other hand, any one institution's own financial reports may not necessarily calculate endowment market value in the same manner as required by NACUBO, or they may vary in the inclusion of different components such as including or not including real estate valuations or non-liquid assets. Thus other reports of endowment market values from other sources may not necessarily be directly comparable to NACUBO figures, and in fact, endowment market values reported the NACUBO study reports and those seen in official annual financial reports published by individual institutions (easily found by googling for any particular school's financial report) are often inconsistent. Furthermore, universities that comprise systems or have branch/regional/satellite campuses may or may not include endowments restricted to individual campuses in a manner different than the figures reported to the NACUBO study, thus making the relative comparability between NACUBO and non-NACUBO sources less clear. And perhaps most obviously, the date of individual institution's market value calculation may not be done on the same date as those in the NACUBO study thus making them inherently incomparable. Therefore, to ensure endowment market values are as comparable and consistent as possible from one institution to the next, and from one year to the next, only the values from this third-party source, NACUBO, are included in the article's table. CrazyPaco ( talk) 07:23, 6 November 2013 (UTC) reply

I moved the page per WP:CrazyPaco to List of colleges and universities in the United States by endowment according to NACUBO. -- Heisenberg, Ph.D. ( talk) 16:40, 6 November 2013 (UTC) reply

Was not per CrazyPaco. Was solely per Heisenberg, Ph.D. If you have a have suggestion to incorporate endowment market value figures from elsewhere that make sense, then please discuss it here. CrazyPaco ( talk) 19:28, 6 November 2013 (UTC) reply

I didn't mind the move very much but I'm also happy keeping the article at this title, too. Whatever its title, it seems quite important to keep the criteria the same not because NACUBO is perfect or we have a special liking of NACUBO but because it is important to try to ensure our data are comparable in a listing like this and using NACUBO's data seems to be the best way to do this. I would be amenable to adding additional sources of information in additional columns if there is significant support for doing that, too. ElKevbo ( talk) 20:32, 6 November 2013 (UTC) reply

The article move was actually reversed by another editor on MOS grounds. I didn't suggest the move, but I also didn't have an issue with it either. I also don't have an issue with a new section for alternative endowment values (particularly combined systems or what not). What has been a problem in the past is people adding alternative numbers or mid year numbers to the table. As you mentioned, and with which I agree completely, the comparability between numbers can be destroyed by such additions. I know of no other way to make numbers comparable than to use a single source of calculations such as the NACUBO's numbers.

Separately, do you have any suggestions for table cutoffs. The table is going to grow infinitely big if the cutoff of the list remains at $1 billion. At a 8% annual rate of growth, there will be over 150 entries by the end of the decade. I'm weary of arbitrary cut-offs, but equally worried about the sustainability of such a table. CrazyPaco ( talk) 00:19, 7 November 2013 (UTC) reply

"Then, let's sit around and see who else if 'worthy' of joining this wonderful group". Do as you please with the article sir. In fact, I'd support moving it to: List of colleges and universities in the United States by endowment according to CrazyPaco -- Heisenberg, Ph.D. ( talk) 01:59, 7 November 2013 (UTC) reply

Heisenberg, please review the following Wikipedia policies: WP:NPA, WP:TALK, WP:CON, WP:AGF. Your participation with constructive comments, if you have any, about the issues of this article are welcome. CrazyPaco ( talk) 17:36, 7 November 2013 (UTC) reply

Agree with CrazyPaco. In addition to violating an alphabet soup of policies, Heisenberg Ph.D. is violating Wikipedia:Dick.-- GrapedApe ( talk) 13:12, 8 November 2013 (UTC) reply

If we are going to use NACUBO as the sole source, the article should be renamed to indicate that the numbers are NACUBO's. The numbers disagree with many numbers directly reported by the universities. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.52.160.127 ( talk) 04:45, 2 April 2014 (UTC) reply

Universities report the numbers directly to NACUBO, so they should be the same except for some timing differences. Bahooka ( talk) 05:14, 2 April 2014 (UTC) reply

It's pretty clear from the sourcing that NACUBO is the source.-- GrapedApe ( talk) 12:01, 2 April 2014 (UTC) reply

Cincinnati, OU, and SUNY endowment numbers were updated from each institution's June 30, 2022 financial report, which is the also the date used by NACUBO. The revision was undone by @ Smokefoot. Because they are not included in the NACUBO study, these institutions were updated individually. If the article will use NACUBO as the sole source, it seems these institutions should be removed from the list. This is further supported by SUNY and OU not appearing in the 2021 NACUBO report currently cited. Redraiderengineer ( talk) 15:12, 5 June 2023 (UTC) reply

The spirit of the article is to provide data that give a general (encyclopedic vs news report) information. NACUBO, being detached from any of the institutions reported on, seems to be an objective national organization of accountants and such. They can be assumed to apply uniform accounting standards for what counts as endowment, what attributes make a university foundation (vs myriad foundations allied in diverse ways). They also provide valuable data vs time for all institutions. University foundations are not objective sources of information since those providing the data have an interest in making themselves look good. Those foundation reps have a conflict of interest (and their data are thus suspect).

If you want to propose to revisit the tradition of relying on NACUBO, this Talk page would be a suitable place to do start. -- Smokefoot ( talk) 18:44, 5 June 2023 (UTC) reply

• NACUBO is a professional organization for business and financial officers at institutions of higher education. While an independent organization, NACUBO is not completely detached from the institutions in their reports.

• The NACUBO-TIAA Study of Endowments (NTSE) is assembled from a web-based survey sent to institutions of higher education. The data in the study is self-reported by the institutions and/or their foundations.

However, we should note that ALL of the data in the endowment survey report, including returns by asset class, are self reported, with no easy way to to provide independent verification. It is therefore possible that some survey respondents reported returns for periods prior to June 30.

—  NTSE Frequently Asked Questions

• The financial reports from the institutions and/or their foundations are independently audited. For example, Cincinnati's financial report was independently audited by Forvis, LLP. In this case, all three institutions use the same fiscal year as NACUBO (July 1 - June 30).

With that said, there's value in having a consistent approach to calculating the results. NTSE is likely the best available source and offers comparability. To keep with NACUBO as the sole source, I propose removing the institutions not included in the current NTSE study year (2022) from the list. Redraiderengineer ( talk) 21:07, 5 June 2023 (UTC) reply

You do what you think is best. Typical Wikipedia protocol would be to summarize any big changes you recommend on this Talk page. As you can see, I have been tending this article for a long time, often by reverting well-meaning folk who want to update a school. My guess is that many of those attempted edits were motivated by affection for their alma mater. But who knows. Good luck and happy editing, -- Smokefoot ( talk) 22:12, 5 June 2023 (UTC) reply

With no new discussion on this proposal in the past month, I have updated the article to adhere with the NACUBO-only policy. Additionally, some endowment values were corrected to using the 2022 report and rounded to three decimal places for uniformity. Redraiderengineer ( talk) 23:33, 5 July 2023 (UTC) reply

Using only NACUBO is a poor policy because you end up having big schools like University of Chicago completely off the list. Title should reworded if you are only sourcing NACUBO, because as it stands this page is not, despite the title a "List of colleges and universities in the United States by endowment" Jjazz76 ( talk) 05:57, 23 July 2023 (UTC) reply

I don't think system-wide endowments should be listed in a list comparing those system-wide endowments to endowments of specific individual universities. In many cases, these system-wide endowments include endowments from several independent university campuses, health science centers, research centers, law schools, agriculture center, and other institutions that are not part of the flagship university. It is comparing apples to oranges. Those system-wide endowments create a false view of the flagship university's actual endowment. Treydavis3 ( talk) 20:41, 6 November 2013 (UTC) reply

I agree that is there are less than ideal comparisons, but I'm not sure, given the above mentioned differences in sources how to make them comparable. Some universities don't release numbers for individual schools or campuses. Penn State, for instance, has 19 campuses, including separate campuses for law and medicine, and there are no publicly available break downs of those numbers. Other schools in the table, such as Kansas and Purdue have a few campus and have been noted as "systems", even though they aren't listed as such on NACUBO's report which makes me wonder about the appropriateness of such notation per WP:OR. However, such schools aren't anywhere near the equivalent to systems to those of, say, the UC system or the University of Texas system, that include multiple full fledged national-level research universities. I'm not sure, how in the existing table, numbers calculated in variety of manners can be introduced and still have those numbers be comparable to the degree of the unified presentation that the NACUBO study provides. However, perhaps a new section could be added to address such discrepancies. It could include breakdowns of system or campus endowments if available, while noting market value calculations may differ from the NACUBO study. CrazyPaco ( talk) 18:09, 7 November 2013 (UTC) reply

What about making two separate tables, one for university endowments and another for system-wide endowments? I don't think they should be in the same comparison tables because they are comparing two different endowments. Treydavis3 ( talk) 03:28, 9 November 2013 (UTC) reply

You first have to define what is a system vs a single university. I don't think that is as easy as it seems, especially without original research. And then you have the problem of the availability of a system's individual university endowments that aren't necessarily publicly available, or vice versa, making for the likely possibility that such a split couldn't be consistently applied for each system or school. It also isn't necessarily clear in every case what exactly is reported for each individual school, when they part of a system, particularly in the school's own reports. There are a lot of potential assumptions to be made trying to split the table apart. Therefore, I think the first table needs to stay as is for consistency just because the NACUBO study knows a lot more about the numbers that it collects than we do. The existing table thus reflects NACUBO's report of endowment comparability, and it is noted as such, and thus also avoids introducing the editorializing or bias of Wikipedia editors. That said, I'd have no problem with adding a second, separate table that could contain information of system or university unit breakdowns or combinations that are known from other sources and not necessarily included in the NACUBO table. Such a table could include, for example, both the breakdowns of the UT system endowment, if available, or the combination of the Cal State system endowment that was removed from the NACUBO table. While I support adding such a table, and encourage you pursue it if you like, my guess is that the multiple sources and inherent complexities of that table will likely result in it becoming outdate and poorly maintained over time, and it will inherently be perpetually incomplete. None of those reasons are ones to prevent it from being created though. CrazyPaco ( talk) 08:56, 9 November 2013 (UTC) reply

Should be on the list as per the wikipedia page on University of Iowa lists its endowment at $1.06 billion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.158.101.11 ( talk) 19:18, 24 November 2013 (UTC) reply

The NACUBO references shows it at $981 million most recently, so it does not make the cut off. Thanks, Bahooka ( talk) 20:31, 24 November 2013 (UTC) reply

I will be adding tables depicting universities producing most millionaires and billionaires. Financial endowments are mostly comprised of donations to the institution. In the recent years, alumni giving has become even more crucial as tuition puts strain on undergraduate students and un-funded graduate students. Though, those are rarer at better universities with large endowments(as listed in this article). Furthermore, alumni contribution has picked up as public universities face budget cuts from their representative governmental agencies. Social stratification has also been a new trend in higher education that relates to financial standings of universities. This is old news, but it's no big news that the best and most selective universities also have the largest endowments. Higher ed scholars believe that the recent stratification is partially due to a divide between university haves and haves-nots.

The reader of the encyclopedia will gain valuable information comparing the institutions producing the most financial successful alumni relative to their endowment. The source is a legitimate source(BusinessInsider) which is frequently used by higher education publications such as higher Ed Today and the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Let me know what you all think, DMB112 ( talk) 18:40, 1 December 2013 (UTC) reply

• That's not within the parameters of this list. If you have reliable sources ( WP:RS) on that, then put it in List of colleges and universities in the United States by number of millionaires and billionaires. -- GrapedApe ( talk) 14:47, 1 February 2014 (UTC) reply

Over 1 billion as of November 2013. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.140.86.63 ( talk) 08:03, 1 February 2014 (UTC) reply

The new NECSE tables are out. I don't have time, but someone should add the 2013. Keep 2005. It's interesting to see the trend. EDIT: Never mind...I'll do it. DMB112 ( talk) 14:53, 2 February 2014 (UTC) reply

Is this possible? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.69.232.127 ( talk) 20:33, 4 October 2014 (UTC) reply

On the second table, if you try to sort by enrollment, it sorts alphabetically, rather than numerically, so you get 1,000; 1,500; 1,980; 10,450; 15,000; 19,000; 2,000; etc. I know there's a template that can be added to numbers to they sort right, but not sure what and don't have time right now to track it down. Ma ^t _c hups 23:12, 1 June 2015 (UTC) reply

I know this article only cites NACUBO, but the CSU system in California has a $1.4 billion endowment system-wide. Can we include that here? -- Eustressmeister ( talk) 15:43, 16 May 2016 (UTC) reply

Rutgers reached 1 billion in December 2015. ^[1] Itsnotmyfault1 ( talk) 20:43, 19 January 2017 (UTC) reply

It seems that the link for the most recent NACUBO endowment study is broken. That slippage may explain the wildly inaccurate figures cited for some schools for that year. Given the falsity of that column, it would be useful for someone to find a good source for NACUBO and to make the appropriate edits. I don't seem to be able to find a good citation or would do it myself rather than posting about it

PS: don't seem to be able to move my comment above the Rutgers footnote: apologies. I'll leave my post up for a day or so and then delete it to restore the note to its proper position.

Bluedudemi ( talk) 19:23, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Can you view this link: https://www.nacubo.org/-/media/Nacubo/Documents/EndowmentFiles/2017-Endowment-Market-Values.ashx?la=en&hash=E71088CDC05C76FCA30072DA109F91BBC10B0290? I cross checked Harvard, Yale, and Rutgers and those numbers appear ok.-- Smokefoot ( talk) 19:30, 14 May 2018 (UTC) reply

Hi all, I cleaned up the (spammed) citations on the uni list and updated the dead links with working ones. After I changed this however, the "sort" function on the table has glitched somehow. I set the table to sortable but doesn't seem to work. May be an experienced wiki user can help to identify the issue and clear up sortability on that table. Thanks. GreaterPonce665 ( talk) 05:11, 9 November 2019 (UTC) reply

I updated the table for privates today. The references remain needful of checking. The data for publics will be inserted later. The table of $/student was old and the definition of a student was challenged. NACUBO provides these data, so I included them for the privates. On a related topic, it would be nice to have an article on state dollars allocated to higher ed. -- Smokefoot ( talk) 00:31, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply

Why in the world did you remove the public institutions from the "Endowments per enrollee?" And why did you remove the template in that section requesting clarification about the definition of "student" without addressing that (very significant) problem? ElKevbo ( talk) 00:36, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply

With respect to your question, the answers are that I am doing what seems useful to readers.

With regards to listing only privates for the student data: first of all the data are correct. Second, I am anticipating what readers want to see. Third, I have no idea what the state support is for the public schools. For public schools, state support is virtually the equivalent to endowment. So one can make public schools look pathetic by including an Indiana U next to Notre Dame, but that impression would be false, because IU gets tens of millions from the state of Indiana. So effectively, for all we know, IU has at least as many dollars per student as NDU.

Do you see what I am getting at? I will recheck in the AM, signing off for a while.-- Smokefoot ( talk) 00:44, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply

On basis are you asserting that "all the data are correct?" You've removed the references from the table so there doesn't seem to be any basis to make that assertion (nor the ability for any other editor to verify the data or add to the table because no one else knows where the data came from).

On what basis are you asserting that "state support is virtually the equivalent to endowment?"

And why does it matter that "one can make public schools look pathetic" based on this ratio which is simple and accurate (assuming the underlying data are accurate)? It's not a comparison of all sources of funding, just endowments; trying to mix in state funding is off-topic. ElKevbo ( talk) 00:52, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply

OK, you have me hooked for one more round.

1)"On basis are you asserting that "all the data are correct?" You've removed the references from the table" The data are correct to the extent that NACUCO is correct. Hopefully we can agree those data are good. Go ahead and add the ref. I just did not want to play with the formatting since no one prior to you ever paid any attention!

"On what basis are you asserting that "state support is virtually the equivalent to endowment?"" dollars are dollars.

""And why does it matter that "one can make public schools look pathetic"" because I am concerned that we present accurate data (which we do) and (!) that we avoid deceiving readers into thinking those comparisons are meaningful. But maybe I am misguided (hence remove the table if you are convinced) Part of my intention was to eventually document that private and public schools operate very differently. Now I am signing off! Thanks for your comments. -- Smokefoot ( talk) 01:03, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply

The comparison is meaningful. Public institutions build endowments and raise money just like private institutions do. That wasn't the case a few decades ago but now the fundraising systems of public institutions are just as sophisticated as those of private institutions. It's a completely reasonable comparison to the extent that endowments are meaningful for public institutions (they are meaningful, just not the final source of financial support like they are for many - but not all - private institutions).

NACUBO includes public institutions in its tables, including the one that makes this specific comparison, so clearly they - people who have significant expertise in this area - believe it's a worthwhile comparison. So I'm very wary of a Wikipedia editor asserting that the comparison cannot or should not be made when that editor cannot cite any evidence except for his or her own experience and opinion. ElKevbo ( talk) 01:15, 30 January 2020 (UTC) reply

@ Sdkb: The historical data on endowments/institution were removed. That removal is ok with me. It was sorta interesting to see the year-on-year growth/decline in some cases. -- Smokefoot ( talk) 23:49, 23 January 2021 (UTC) reply

@ Sdkb: I dont see the point in ranking the endowments. The data are nuanced in many ways. As you probably know, the whole ranking business is complicated and controversial.-- Smokefoot ( talk) 16:31, 24 January 2021 (UTC) reply

@ Smokefoot: As rankings go, this seems quite straightforward: an institution has whatever endowment it has, no nuance or subjectivity to it. Yes, there's lots of things that affect how much an endowment of a given size translates to "wealth" (student body size being the biggest), but all we can do is contextualize the data as best we can. Sorting alphabetically tells the reader very little, whereas sorting by endowment size (which I think we should adopt; the rank column is a step toward that) allows the reader to easily see what the e.g. five biggest endowments are, something many will surely be wondering. {{u| Sdkb}}  ^talk 16:50, 24 January 2021 (UTC) reply

Well readers can do the ranking without help. The second reason for my repugnance for ranking is that now, as one of the caretakers of this article, I must deal with those envious editors vying for rank.

Re: "student body size being the biggest" is probably untrue. A bigger factor is how the components of the endowment are structured, e.g., for a

• divinity school (Princeton, Chicago, Harvard,), where multi-billion $ endowments do nothing for non-divinity students.
• Med schools, super expensive, but useless for 99% of students
• the care of a coin collection because of some eccentric donor's request (Princeton).-- Smokefoot ( talk) 17:26, 24 January 2021 (UTC) reply

I realized that NACUBO also seems to publish endowment per student data; see https://www.nacubo.org/Research/2020/Public-NTSE-Tables (see "Table: U.S. and Canadian 2020 NTSE Participating Institutions Listed by Fiscal Year 2020 Endowment Market Value, Percentage Change in Market Value from FY19 to FY20, and FY20 Endowment Market Values Per Full-time Equivalent Student (Excel)"). It's not quite as user-friendly as College Raptor, but it's more up-to-date and a more direct source, so we should probably switch to it. {{u| Sdkb}}  ^talk 22:39, 29 June 2021 (UTC) reply

The main problem with per student data is that such analyses give undue weight to boutique institutions and tiny schools. So we risk emphasizing institutions that barely qualify as universities.-- Smokefoot ( talk) 13:45, 30 June 2021 (UTC) reply

@ Smokefoot: I have to disagree with that—for many readers here, the salient question is "which colleges can lavish the most resources on their students"? A giant institution that doesn't rank very highly on a per-capita basis isn't likely to be seen as truly wealthy; being "boutique" is the point. Just since one has never heard of e.g. Soka doesn't mean it doesn't count as a college. {{u| Sdkb}}  ^talk 14:35, 30 June 2021 (UTC), reply

well there are probably smaller institutions with even fainter scholar imprint, if that is possible, than SOKA. So let me look around. Probably some ultra-religious entity.-- Smokefoot ( talk) 19:30, 30 June 2021 (UTC) reply

I fail to see the relevance of your concerns, Smokefoot. Can you please explain them differently or provide some specific examples? Why exactly is publishing information about endowment per student "emphasizing institutions that barely qualify as universities" [emphasis added]? What exactly is your concern? ElKevbo ( talk) 20:21, 30 June 2021 (UTC) reply

When I downloaded and sorted the NACUBO data, there were a few institutions that showed up in the top 10 that weren't on the College Raptor list. They are Rockefeller University (graduate-only), Princeton Theological Seminary (which is separate from Princeton University), and Principia College (Christian Science liberal arts college; its absence was probably hardest to explain on the Raptor list). Beyond those, it's the usual suspects of Ivies and top liberal arts colleges. {{u| Sdkb}}  ^talk 20:24, 30 June 2021 (UTC) reply

Try to find History, English, Physics, Chemistry depts at Soka. They might call themselves a university.... Just sayin' -- Smokefoot ( talk) 23:11, 30 June 2021 (UTC) reply

We're not going to make or avoid making any edits simply because you personally disagree or don't like something. Please review WP:NPOV. ElKevbo ( talk) 00:21, 1 July 2021 (UTC) reply

Of course we arent going to make decisions based on the comments/views of a single editor. But individual editors are welcome to express views and encourage analysis. The question that I am probing is how does one define a "university"? Some crackpot gives a billion dollars to create an operation that offers instruction in ultra-specialized topics, then declares that they are an-amazing-institution-that-deserves-respect on par with those that actually teach flim-flam topics like history and physics. How lame. Like I said, there no doubt are institutions that do even less than SOKA, and should be considered in this aanalysis. -- Smokefoot ( talk) 01:37, 1 July 2021 (UTC) reply

We determine what is a college or university the same way we do everything else: we rely on reliable sources. In this instance, we can rely on NACUBO. If we were answering that question in other contexts, in the U.S. we could look to the U.S. Department of Education and recognized accreditors to determine if an institution is a legitimate college or university. If we need to classify an institution, we look to the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. ElKevbo ( talk) 03:19, 1 July 2021 (UTC) reply

"We determine what is a college or university the same way we do everything else..." THAT is the question. Wikipedia is not bound to do anything "the same way we do everything else..." For example, in my editing world of chemistry, we often do not accept international naming conventions. You see: we have discussions, reach consensus, and then act. And often we revise our decisions. We are autonomous and thinking. In any case, thank you for indulging me, despite my nonparticipation in groupthink. Go ahead, SOKA should be compared with the University of Chicago.-- Smokefoot ( talk) 11:44, 1 July 2021 (UTC) reply

I'm fed up with having to revert IPs trying to make updates to individual institutions who don't see or don't heed the editnotice. It'd really be nice if the WMF would take up meta:Community_Wishlist_Survey_2021/Mobile_and_apps/Mobile_editnotices (aka phab:T201595). {{u| Sdkb}}  ^talk 21:24, 23 August 2021 (UTC) reply

News reports suggest that 2020 witnessed dramatic changes in university endowments, several ranging from 30-50+%. It is likely that readers will be keenly interested in not just the new numbers but the previous (2019) values. This idea is not actionable until February or March, 2022, when the next NACUBO report appears.-- Smokefoot ( talk) 20:25, 6 October 2021 (UTC) reply

I am respectfully asking @ Smokefoot: to please stop randomly re-ordering items in the table. Whether or not a table is sortable, information should not be sorted randomly by default. Filetime ( talk) 00:31, 4 March 2022 (UTC) reply

It would be very helpful, especially in providing reference for various pages, if there was a global ranking of colleges and universities by endowment size. A long-standing statement on the University of Cambridge page that it is "among the wealthiest in the world" is clearly true but in question; in supporting it, however, we are forced to convert currencies and make sure affiliated colleges are included in that number. I'll do that work for this particular page and will even help, best I can, in working with anyone interested in developing the global list. But a global list would be a very helpful page in many ways; we should develop it. HarvardStuff ( talk) 21:37, 5 October 2022 (UTC) reply

I agree that a global list would be useful or at least would be of great interest to readers. We have this Lists of institutions of higher education by endowment size but it appears to be dated and incomplete.

@ HarvardStuff:The US and Canadian data are reported annually by NACUBO, which is accepted as an objective source. Self-reported data from North American universities are probably not reliable. We are constantly battling folks entering data for their fav institutions as reported by those institutional foundations. Another beauty of the NACUBO data: it comes out once each year. I do not know about sources for endowment data from other countries except the institutions themselves, which again are not necessarily reliable. My guess is that Oxbridge etc would be dwarfed by top US endowments.

You can see that the page has endowment per student. (of course one could debate the definition of a "student"). Some time ago, I changed it to only list institutions with ≥1000 students otherwise weird institutions top the list.

There are many other kinds of info that could be of interest.

• I would be interested in seeing endowments for an institution corrected for the funds dedicated specifically to athletics and for med schools. One suspects that big chunks of Harvard, Yale, etc funds are dedicated to highly specialized functions like divinity schools.
• It would be interesting to see state funding for public (and some private!) institutions. State funding is equivalent to endowment income in some ways.-- Smokefoot ( talk) 22:58, 5 October 2022 (UTC) reply

Large endowment but not on the >$1 billion list. See https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d10/tables/dt10_372.asp 2600:4040:278E:A400:EDB3:2CB1:94E:56D1 ( talk) 21:11, 6 July 2023 (UTC) reply

The article has a NACUBO data-only policy, and BYU isn't included in the FY2022 NACUBO report. Redraiderengineer ( talk) 00:57, 7 July 2023 (UTC) reply

the policy should be revisited. Jjazz76 ( talk) 05:57, 23 July 2023 (UTC) reply

I can’t see any good reason to continue to privilege self-reported data from one association of institutions. Most edits I see on this page are a fly-swatting edit-war of removing non-NACUBO schools whose data is just as reliable as those who have merely chosen to associate together. So long as data reasonably reliable, and is of the same type, other schools should be added.

Aside from making our job much easier, are there other compelling reasons to privilege the NACUBO data? —  HTGS ( talk) 02:33, 18 December 2023 (UTC) reply

Beginning over a decade ago, the Why only NACUBO figures for the table? section covers the evolution of this discussion featuring active editors such as ElKevbo and Crazypaco.

While initially questioning this consensus, I ultimately agreed it was likely the best available source in a discussion with Smokefoot. Here is a quick summary of those reasons from my point of view.

1. The NACUBO study uses self-reported data, but the report provides a uniform approach for calculating endowment data across institutions for the same one-year period. A uniform approach offers comparability between institutions in the list (and year-to-year) instead of a potentially indiscriminate list of financial data. It is also helpful to readers who may not be well-versed in higher education endowments.
2. The study is a secondary source and thus generally preferred over a primary source (i.e., an institution's financial report).
3. The study provides a (minor) check on boosterism.

Redraiderengineer ( talk) 01:41, 10 January 2024 (UTC) reply

Perhaps my views have changed over time but I'm not sure that the current practice of relying on this one source serves us and our readers well. At a minimum, if we stick with this practice then the article needs to be retitled so it's clear to readers. More importantly, I'm not sure about the ethics and legality of us just reproducing a significant portion of another document. Facts can't be copyrighted so this may not be a legal issue but it's certainly questionable whether an encyclopedia should just be reproducing a portion of a table in another source and adding very little context. ElKevbo ( talk) 02:11, 10 January 2024 (UTC) reply

@ ElKevbo, you might like to check out Wikipedia:Copyright in lists for a little insight into how we think about lists being copyrighted. Essentially, so long as the data and the list is compiled objectively—as it is here—we’re fine. —  HTGS ( talk) 02:27, 10 January 2024 (UTC) reply

Thanks; I left out a critical word in my response about the likely legality of this list. Apologies for any confusion! ElKevbo ( talk) 03:04, 10 January 2024 (UTC) reply

Can we get deeper into why the data sets aren’t compatible? Is there a difference in how U Chicago evaluates its numbers from how the NACUBO schools do? I think that would help me a lot, because the distinction between primary and secondary sources feels pretty irrelevant here, and I think a lot of people could take it that one is more independent or more reliable. —  HTGS ( talk) 02:24, 10 January 2024 (UTC) reply

Hi I am one of the defenders of using only NACUBO. We dont use it because their data are easy. Instead, the two main justifications for using NACUBO are:

• (i) those data are more objective because they are issued once a year (vs diverse editors updating) and NACUBO seems to be a third party that would avoid bias. One could say, "more objective than what?" My response is that we do not have alternative comprehensive lists. Lord knows, this article would be viewed as less reliable if we ad hoc'd it.
• (ii) use of NACUBO data helps us avoid WP:BOOSTERISM, which is a persistent problem, usually by fly-by editors who want their favorite institution to look good. On that topic, administrators of those institutions also can be expected to be biased.

Overall, the listing is highly consulted almost for the very reason that it irks some of us. It's like democracy, an imperfect system, but the best we have. IMHO.-- Smokefoot ( talk) 04:18, 10 January 2024 (UTC) reply

I’m not sure boosterism makes a lot of sense here. This page already “boosts” every institute listed by NACUBO, so why shouldn’t (eg) Chicago be “boosted” equally? In fact, to flip your point, administrators of those already listed institutions might have an interest in preventing non-NACUBO institutes from being added. I also don’t think we can really suggest that the data from non-NACUBO schools is unreliable or non-objective. As has been pointed out, they all get audits from reputable independent firms (Chicago uses KPMG for example).

At this point, the reader is misled by our avoiding schools that should be ranked in higher slots. Rice, Brown, NYU, USC etc should all be below Chicago, but because of our peculiar preference for citing a single one list above all other data, we don’t paint the full picture. Readers don’t care about data from NACUBO being better than data from other schools, they only want the information. —  HTGS ( talk) 03:05, 11 January 2024 (UTC) reply

Oh, its about UChicago which for some reason did not participate in the NACUBO. Good point. But let's not break a pretty good system for one flaw, instead lets address the flaw and put in an adhoc update on UChicago (and others) with an explanatory footnote.-- Smokefoot ( talk) 03:33, 11 January 2024 (UTC) reply

I mean, honestly I just used Chicago as the most prominent example—it’s certainly the one that IPs try to add the most. It feels kind of absurd to break out that one school though, doesn’t it? Shouldn’t we just permit all schools that have equally strong sourcing to UChicago? —  HTGS ( talk) 01:04, 12 January 2024 (UTC) reply

What policy allows us to purposefully and repeatedly exclude the many other reliable sources that also publish this information? (Other than WP:IAR, of course.) ElKevbo ( talk) 03:53, 11 January 2024 (UTC) reply

..and when did you stop beating your wife? -- Smokefoot ( talk) 16:49, 11 January 2024 (UTC) reply

Are you going to try to answer the question or just make further comments that very clearly assume bad faith? ElKevbo ( talk) 01:06, 12 January 2024 (UTC) reply

I really don’t think that’s a helpful response, @ Smokefoot. We do want to follow policy wherever possible, and we should be able to back up exclusions with policy and guideline rationale. —  HTGS ( talk) 01:08, 12 January 2024 (UTC) reply

Well, I have assiduously responded to many queries over years in support this friggin page and then I get accused of "purposefully and repeatedly exclude the many other reliable sources.." ... I do not know of "many other reliable sources". Or any. NACUBO is a single source of information by a group that we AGF. As mentioned above, their data comes out once each year, which minimizes ad hoc additions and minimizes WP:BOOSTERISM. If there is another single source, let's assess it. If one looks at Wiki articles on demographics or economics, these data-driven articles always rely on collective sources (CIA, World Bank, IMF,...). Sometimes they list two data sources (see List of countries by total fertility rate#Country ranking by most recent year), which we could do also. My main plea is that we seek consensus on one or more single sources for almost all the data, and then fill in occasional gaps as in the case of Univ Chicago.-- Smokefoot ( talk) 02:07, 12 January 2024 (UTC) reply

For the record, the other schools I have seen added by IPs are SUNY, Liberty University, College of the Holy Cross, University of Cincinnati and Brigham Young University. There may be others that would make the list, but I doubt there are many more. —  HTGS ( talk) 06:32, 12 January 2024 (UTC) reply

Private schools

The data on the right column are from https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d22/tables/dt22_333.90.asp. "Endowment funds of the 120 degree-granting postsecondary institutions with the largest endowments, by rank order: Fiscal year 2021" The idea here is to show other data for those that doubt NACUBO. The risk of overwhelming readers and inviting even more meddling. The data for public schools deviate more strongly from NACUBO. We could even limit both tables to a combined 120 institutions, as set by the U.S. Dept. of Ed.-- Smokefoot ( talk) 00:22, 9 February 2024 (UTC) reply

-- Smokefoot ( talk) 23:26, 8 February 2024 (UTC) reply

Hi–Amherst College is not listed in the "Endowments per student greater than $1 million dollars, probably because the cell in the NCSE Endowment Market values is blank for that category. Amherst is still definitely in the Williams-Pomona range. What should be done about this? Kwafsdnva ( talk) 03:18, 10 March 2024 (UTC) reply

See the discussion at Talk:Lists of institutions of higher education by endowment size#Endowment per student. Its very deceptive.-- Smokefoot ( talk) 19:24, 3 April 2024 (UTC) reply

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