Category Archives: endowments

May 1, 2013, 1:44 pm

What Happens When a College Ends Its Most Celebrated Tradition?

Some Cooper Union students painted the inside of one campus building black in protest to its new policy of charging tuition. Credit: Alexis Rivas Arch

Imagine if Kenyon College scrapped its literary magazine, Ohio State University folded its football program, and Wellesley College opened its doors to men.

As colleges maneuver to distinguish themselves in an increasingly competitive academic marketplace, it is a rare institution that surrenders a signature tradition. Cooper Union did just that last week, when its Board of Trustees announced that it would begin charging undergraduate tuition after more than a century of granting full-tuition scholarships to every student who was admitted. No one was particularly surprised by the move, which the financially beleaguered New York institution had been considering for …

January 29, 2013, 5:51 pm

Divesting From Fossil-Fuel Companies Is Unlikely to Harm Endowments, Report Says

By Lee Gardner

College-endowment managers who resist the growing call to divest their holdings in fossil-fuel companies may be doing so for little or no financial reason, according to a new report.

An analysis released on Tuesday by the Aperio Group, an investment-management firm that offers its clients a “socially responsible index,” among other investment strategies, found that while divesting from fossil-fuel companies does not necessarily add value to a portfolio, it does not subtract value from it either, and it increases the risk to investors at such a modest level as to be negligible.

In recent months, student groups at more than 200 colleges across the country have begun pushing their institutions to divest from fossil-fuel companies. A handful of smaller institutions, including Unity College and Hampshire College, have recently adopted strategies to reduce their investments in such…