For stewards of elite university endowments, the past year has been difficult. All eight Ivy League colleges lagged behind the S&P 500 index by at least ten percentage points in their most recent fiscal year. Those ensnared in President Donald Trump’s culture wars, including Columbia and Harvard, are writing cheques for hundreds of millions of dollars to settle disputes and regain public funding. And the endowment model itself is under strain. Devotion to alternative assets is being questioned amid high fees, revised valuations and low liquidity. Some colleges, including Yale, have sought to offload private-equity stakes in order to raise cash.
