Endowment Performance

Since Harvard Management Company established its current, highly diversified asset mix and investment strategies for the endowment in 1991...

Since Harvard Management Company established its current, highly diversified asset mix and investment strategies for the endowment in 1991, financial returns have been strong—and handsomely ahead of market results in general. The annualized rate of return for the past five years (even including the losses in fiscal years 2001 and 2002) is 11.8 percent—more than twice market benchmarks. For the past decade, the annualized rate of return has been 15.9 percent, 4 points more than market returns.  
Chart by Stephen Anderson
   

Most popular

How Philosophy at Harvard Saved Itself

As humanities shrink across higher education, one department is flourishing. Is its success a fluke, or a roadmap?

Crimson Football: Harvard 41, Cornell 29

Erasing an early deficit, the unbeaten Crimson roll to an Ivy win.

Three Harvard Alumni and a Former Postdoc Named MacArthur Fellows

A labor economist, an organic chemist, a physicist, and a memory researcher were honored with 2026 “genius” grants.

Explore More From Current Issue

Illustration of a phone, book, hourglass, weights, and a hand reaching for a device on a blue background.

Your thoughts on how to regulate the platforms—and stop using them so much

A smiling man in a brown plaid suit stands outdoors with greenery in the background.

The professor and former Harvard College dean is the next president of Harvard Magazine’s Board of Directors

Bronze statue of a seated figure holding a book, with a campus setting in the background.

As humanities shrink across higher education, one department is flourishing. Is its success a fluke, or a roadmap?