Yale's Levin on the Age of Diminishing Endowments - WSJ.com

Yale's Levin on the Age of Diminishing Endowments - WSJ.com: "Then came the Great Recession. What went up so fast for elite universities -- Yale's endowment grew to $23 billion last summer from $3.1 billion in 1993, Mr. Levin's first year -- dropped like a stone. The impact was immediate: Mr. Levin announced a 5% spending cut in December (later adjusted to 7.5%), then froze faculty pay and most large capital projects. By the end of this month he says the endowment will be marked down by a quarter to around $17 billion. Harvard, the only university with a larger endowment, got caught out on arcane fare like interest rate swaps and now projects a 30% decline, to about $24 billion."