Universities See Sluggish Endowment Returns

Fiscal year 2023 marked a mixed bag for university endowment returns. While a complete picture is not yet available—not all institutions have published their latest figures—some of the nation’s richest universities saw sluggish returns, according to their financial reports. Some blamed the slide on the underperformance of private equity and venture capital investments. Results differed sharply from the sky high returns of fiscal year 2021, more closely resembling endowment performances in FY 2022, which showed mostly modest returns across the board.