BOSTON — Hundreds of U.S. colleges lost money on their investments last year, continuing a downward slide that threatens to put a pinch on budgets, according to a new study.
Among 800 schools included in the study, the average endowment shrank by almost 2 percent, the worst performance since the economic recession in 2009. The annual study is done by the National Association of College and University Business Officers and the Commonfund Institute, a Connecticut investment firm.
In contrast to college endowments, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index, a broad measurement of the stock market, ended 2016 with a gain of 9.5 percent.
Many colleges invested heavily in stocks outside the U.S., which performed poorly, pulling down their overall returns. Investments in energy and natural resources also led to losses.
It was the second year in a row that colleges saw their returns decrease, following two previous years of strong gains and a series of swings before that.
“We live in an age of tremendous volatility,” Bill Jarvis, executive director of the Commonfund Institute, said in a telephone conference with reporters on Monday.
Some of the nation’s wealthiest universities were hit hardest last year. Harvard University’s $34 billion endowment remained the largest but fell by 5 percent, the study found. The value of Columbia University’s endowment fell by 6.2 percent, to $9 billion. The University of Chicago’s fell 7 percent, to $7 billion.
