The Endowment: Each School’s Stake

(Sidebar) The shrinking Harvard endowment affects the University's different schools differently.

Return to main article:

Harvard’s endowment, valued at $36.9 billion as of last June 30, in fact belongs to the separate schools and other academic departments. The large chart shows the share of the endowment owned by each (the Faculty of Arts and Sciences loomed largest, at $15.7 billion—nearly 43 percent of the total). Of crucial importance is each school’s dependence on distributions from the endowment for its operating budget, shown in the inset chart. Source: Harvard University Financial Report, Fiscal Year 2008.

Chart by Stephen Anderson

You might also like

Long-discussed reorganization includes layoffs and the end of the Dudley Community.

A roundup of University news from the summer of 2026

FAS leaders say restructuring will be complete by mid-October.

Most popular

All That’s Unseen charts the Harvard graduate’s uneasy journey from Appalachia to Cambridge and back.  

After a final round of layoffs, University leaders say 165 staff jobs were eliminated across the division.

In 1954, Gregory Corso moved into Eliot House. How he stayed there is a literary legend.

Explore More From Current Issue

Three actors perform on stage, with one actor interacting closely with another, set against abstract backgrounds.

The play Spare Parts is a contemporary fable about the quest to live forever.

A vibrant illustration of a red car parked, surrounded by cheerful people and historic buildings.

Derek Bok donated his car for a good cause.

Portrait of a man in a denim shirt beside a blue book cover for "Gretal and the Great War" featuring an illustration of a leg holding an army helmet..

The Gretel and the Great War author on how the Lampoon derailed his science career—and set him on a literary path.