Harvard is of a quality virtually unique due to the size of their endowment, their degree of reliance on it, and the way it is managed (for Aggressive Growth). At some point you have to ask if the tail is wagging the dog.
You could fit most universities' endowments in the interest payments Harvard gets from the fixed income allocation of their endowment alone. Don't take my word for that: look at the list of universities in the US with gigantic endowments:
Harvard does not exist to provide a financial return to its investors.
It really does -- Harvard is the sole investor in Harvard, and Harvard went for aggressive growth and a 15% CAGR. (The article talks about a multi-billion interest rate swap which had a speculative payoff in the billions.) The typical behavior of endowments is "We're going to husband this carefully and spend about 4 or 5% a year to supplement our other sources of income."
Harvard is known for their educational merits, not their endowment.
Harvard is not the sole investor in Harvard...the endowment is largely the result of donations by wealthy alumni, none of whom will be getting a return on that investment.
You could fit most universities' endowments in the interest payments Harvard gets from the fixed income allocation of their endowment alone. Don't take my word for that: look at the list of universities in the US with gigantic endowments:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._colleges_and_unive...
Harvard does not exist to provide a financial return to its investors.
It really does -- Harvard is the sole investor in Harvard, and Harvard went for aggressive growth and a 15% CAGR. (The article talks about a multi-billion interest rate swap which had a speculative payoff in the billions.) The typical behavior of endowments is "We're going to husband this carefully and spend about 4 or 5% a year to supplement our other sources of income."
Harvard is known for their educational merits, not their endowment.
I didn't say their PR arm was ineffective.