A day after almost 1,000 colleges learned that they would temporarily be unable to withdraw most of the money they had invested in a short-term fund managed by Wachovia, they got another piece of bad news: Commonfund, which offered the bank-managed fund, was also limiting withdrawals from an intermediate-term fund.

Commonfund, which manages assets for nonprofit companies, announced Tuesday that it would allow colleges to withdraw only 30 percent of their assets from the intermediate-term fund until the credit crunch subsides. The fund, which contains $1-billion in assets invested by roughly 200 colleges, comprises a mix of securities, including the troublesome asset-backed securities.

This second freeze, however, is not expected to have as broad an impact on colleges as the Wachovia freeze has, because the money invested is less ($1-billion vs. more than $9-billion) and because colleges tend to use that money for longer-term expenditures, such as equipment, said Keith Luke, a spokesman for Commonfund. In contrast, many colleges use the short-term fund that Wachovia managed for payroll.

Mr. Luke said Commonfund had instituted the freeze because the organization, like banks and lenders nationwide, has been unable to sell its asset-backed securities. He said he didn’t know how long the restrictions would be in effect, but said he had not heard concerns from college investors.

“Obviously, no one likes to have liquidity restrictions, but we have not heard any particular sources of stress among our clients,” he said.

In related news, Moody’s Investors Service said today that it was reviewing the effect of the Wachovia freeze, an assessment that could affect some colleges’ credit ratings. —Kelly Field