After PrezBo’s announcement about the state of the endowment, Bwog decided to see how Columbia’s finances are doing relative to other Ivies. The results offer great opportunities for schadenfreude since Columbia’s predicted loss may be the lowest in the League.

As posted last night, Columbia has far out-performed Harvard and Yale, which lost 22 percent and 25 percent respectively, as well as Princeton, which also has an expected loss of 25 percent. Worse off is Cornell with a whopping 27 percent loss that is leading to major budget cuts and tuition increases.

UPenn has only reported for the 2008 fiscal year, which ended last June. Their loss up until June was 6.1 percent, the largest drop among the nation’s top twenty university endowments for that fiscal year. Its current numbers are unknown. See more losses after the jump.



Dartmouth has admitted to an 18 percent loss and has signaled that staff layoffs are inevitable. Brown, being Brown, seems to be the biggest loser with a 28 percent loss.

How will tuitions and services be affected? That remains to be seen, although Princeton, despite its heavy losses, is raising its tuition by the lowest amount since 1966, hoping to assauge the strain on cash-strapped families.