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41

Well, yes, smaller private schools tend to have larger endowments per student. But Capital’s total endowment is $140m and lost 8% last year. I don’t think I’m going to sign up to trade places with them.

The more relevant comparables are other non-flagship public institutions, most of whom (like Miami) were late to large-scale endowment fundraising and find themselves behind as state resources shrink.

Another factor is that cultivating high-net-worth donors is a specialized skill requiring full-time staff who do nothing else. Landing eight- and nine-figure donations requires years of relationship building and lots of personal attention and meetings. The people who do that aren’t the same sort of folks who call me. Ivies have squadrons of these folks; most publics historically don’t and face pressure not to carry the extra payroll.

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42

I seem to remember a similar argument back in the early 90s, that Miami didn’t have the attendance or interest to remain D-1, and should either commit to really being a D-1 athletics type school or basically become Kenyon or Oberlin.

I have a younger relative who is considering Miami or Mizzou – both offered him a similar financial aid package. He’s really into college sports, and is weighing going to a SEC school with inferior academics so he can have the excitement of the game day experience. So quality athletics does matter to recruiting good students.

Additionally, Miami draws well with regional fans when they have a good team and a stronger named-brand opponent. I’m interested to see the attendance of UNLV and UConn, and I’m certain it will be much more than Stonehill, Lindenwood and LIU-Post. I would like to see Miami draw American, Mountain West or ACC teams into Oxford, bc I think it will be a better overall draw.

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43

Is “should” here indicating an ideal state of affairs, or what you expect to have happen? None of those things are going to cover the millions in costs required.

44

The point about relationship building is an excellent one. Now, I have no clue if times have changed, but I know that development at Miami used to be very siloed. I used to hear from folks in athletic development that certain folks were “hands off” because they were targeted for Humanities giving, etc. That kind of thinking generally resulted in Miami getting nothing, because there was no effort to get to know the potential donor. Miami has always done a terrible job of listening to what people want.

45

Good point. I hope of the current donor wants to fund an arena that we dont we screw it up

46

I agree with most of your points.

I am not suggesting that we trade places with Capital but the fact is endowment per student is the most relevant measure when talking about the ability to provide scholarship money from the endowment.

It is true that private schools have put more emphasis historically on endowment fund raising than non-flagship state schools and cultivating high net worth donors is a specialized skill. Non-flagship state schools have clearly lagged in these respects.

However, let’s compare Miami with some other non-flagship state schools by comparison.

Endowments per student.

Miami $37,000
UC $52,000
NC State $65,000
William & Mary $153,000
VCU $ 98,000
VA Tech $45,000
PItt $200,000
UMBC $124,000
IU Indianapolis $101,000

There are actually state university branch campuses with larger endowments per student than Miami.

Considering the long history of Miami, its substantial alumni base and the wealth of same the numbers suggest that we have done a mediocre job at best in development over the years.

It is true that Miami is right at the top of endowment per student with most MAC schools.

Miami $37,000
OU $29,000
Toledo $26,000
BG $13,000
Akron $23,000
Ball State. $14,000
WMU $37,000
Buffalo $32,000

However, I am not sure that we are really competing for many students academically with our MAC athletic peers so I doubt this is the best measure of the effectiveness of our endowment efforts.

It seems that the development effort has improved in recent years and we should be hopeful that this trend will continue. Nevertheless, the facts suggest that Miami has a lot of room to improve in this area.

47

Frankly I’m not very knowledgeable about university finances, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the endowment figures were significantly impacted by the presence of grad programs. UPMC has to be driving a good chunk of Pitt’s for example.

48

Unsure where that data is coming from. As of FY24, Miami’s endowment was valued at $814,000,000. There were 18,836 students enrolled in the Oxford campus for Fall of '24, putting the endowment at $43,215/student. So the listed figure is off by nearly 20%, and given the rate the endowment has been growing through the campaign mentioned above, I imagine it’s beyond that now.

49

Citation is in my original post above. Data is from 2021-22 so it would be expected that all endowments should be up by at least 20% considering stock market performance until end of 2024. S&P 500 was up over 50% from end of 2022 to end of 2024.

I believe that enrollment is based on total enrolled students. It looks like 19,107 were the number of enrolled students per the cited data.

50

Casually going down the list of schools you compared Miami to. I haven’t found one that increased 20% from 2021 til now, yet. Your calculation doesn’t take into account what is dispersed from endowments each year. Doesn’t matter how much the market increased if you spend all of it.

51

With endowments, wouldn’t you focus on spending the dividends and interest it generates and not touch the principal contribution? Unless specified the principal is to be used to pay for the specific purpose when required.

52

Universities with major medical centers tend to attract more endowment giving. That would certainly be true at Pitt and also probably at IU-Indianapolis (the state system med school is there) and VCU.

Our fellow OG “public Ivy” William & Mary might be a nice case study for our fundraising operation. It’s a school with a fairly similar profile to ours, although it also has a law school which likely helps with mid-career donors.

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53

Yes you are correct! Earnings on the endowment are used to fund scholarships, etc. Principal is usually not touched.

54

Ideally, yes. But the real world isn’t always ideal. Different universities dispurse their funds differently. That’s why you need to look at both sides of the equation instead of assuming all endowments are going up somewhat evenly.

55

You stated that the numbers cited were off for Miami by 20%.

I did not state that I assumed that all endowments went up equally each year. I stated that with the recent stock market performance of the last couple of years a general expectation would be that endowments would be up 20% just based on investment performance,.

There are three factors that can affect endowment size from year to year.

  1. Investment fund performance
  2. New contributions
  3. Funds drawn from the endowment for university purposes

The average endowment return for 2024 was 11.2% in 2024 and 7.7% in 2023 according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers and the Commonfund Institute. That is almost right at an average return of 20% for the two years.

However, there can be wide variations in the investment returns just as there are differences in annual fund raising efforts to add to the endowment. For example, Michigan State generated a 15.1% return in 2024 and Princeton only returned 3.9&

Most college endowment funds limit disbursements to about 5% of the total asset value of the fund in order to not dissipate the principal but there are also variations here.

As to the point you made, Miami’s endowment being up 20% between 2022 and 2024 would not be anything unusual. In fact, the data I found indicates that the endowment went from $686 million for FY 2022 to $739 million in FY2023 to $814 million in the minutes you cite above which was actually as of April, 2024 instead of the actual fiscal year ending June 30.

It appears that the policy of our endowment is to distribute 4% of the average market value over the previous three years.

I don’t know how much the endowment is bringing in through contributions but if investment returns were 20% over the two years that would take the fund to almost $825 million alone. If the endowment paid out $46 million in 2023 and 2024 (about 4% of the previous three year’s asset value) that would reduce the endowment to $779 million. Simple math would suggest that the contributions the last two years have been close to the amounts distributed—about $50 million.

That is a nice sum over two years but would also be only a fraction of the projected cost of a new arena ($180 million). That is why if they have a major donor(s) who is willing to fund a portion of this cost (1/3 or more) it is a big deal.

We are talking an amount equal to all that has been brought into the endowment over a two year period. This is also in the midst of what is a $1 billion fundraising campaign.

If someone has better numbers on all of this please weigh in.

I don’t know anything more than the numbers and data I see.

56

I’m too lazy to Google or read stuff from Dr. Crawford, but would be interested to know what is Miami’s ideal student body size…

57

4% of 825 is 33mm, no?

I point that out only because we need that extra 12mm!!

58

All of the schools you mentioned publish this info annually.

Here’s UD even (see endowment info under note 14): https://udayton.edu/finadmin/_resources/files/financial-reports/2023-24-financial-report-final.pdf

See slide 53 for info on money sent to endowment from the fundraising campaign: https://miamioh.edu/about/leadership-administration/_files/documents/bot/2024/minutes-06-24-finance-audit.pdf#page=36&zoom=100,0,0

59

I’m guessing there’s some nuance in the answer. It seems like the university is happy with the number of undergrads, but I expect Miami to uplevel the graduate and even doctoral programs and then increase enrollment there. There are a lot of nuanced conversations happening here, and I want to be clear - I think the administration wants to continue building their reputation for undergraduate education.

I was recently at an event for the College of Computing and Engineering, and they mentioned their research opportunities are limited because professors can only take on projects that undergrads can help with. I think Dr. Crawford would like to see Miami much more involved in advanced research, which requires more advanced students (doctoral candidates) to help drive.

I expect the new quantum computing degree to grow to include a doctorate.

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60

If Miami cannot match the firepower of doctoral-granting programs in the sciences and biology, these programs will suffer over time and lose their opportunity to be game-changers for Miami. It’s a tall ask to expect Miami to match the academic prowess of our competitors for undergrads in these areas but it needs to be addressed…very soon and very thoughtfully.
From the private sector, partnerships and JVs with respected doctoral-granting institutions may be a way to begin the cooperation.